“[Growi
ng up
was my ] Spider-Man
was fun whole deal. H
e
ny, h
Robert D e was cool..
.”
owney J
r (
Tony Sta
rk)
for playing a super-bendy hero
who spends a lot of his time upside down?
(Indeed, if you want a sneak peek at just how
lithe Holland is, even now, then check out
his Lip Sync Battle on YouTube. He twists, he
turns, he soars, he spins – it’s mesmerising!)
Age appropriate
Holland’s tender years also work in his favour.
He was just 19 when he was first cast as
Spider-Man, making him the youngest screen
Spidey ever. According to the Amazing Spider-
Man comic series, Peter Parker was 15 when he
was first bitten by the spider, so the casting is
pretty much spot on (for Hollywood, at least,
Tobey Maguire was 27 when Spider-Man was
released and Andrew Garfield was 29 by the
time The Amazing Spider-Man came out).
Holland himself agrees. “This is a very
14 odeon.co.uk
Caught in his web
So we’ve got to the bottom of Holland’s appeal,
but what about Spider-Man? It’s been 55
years since the character first appeared in
Amazing Fantasy #15 and yet he’s showing
no signs of being past his sell-by date. In fact,
he remains arguably the best-loved of the
superheroes (in the Marvel universe at least).
So why do we dig the Webbed Wonder so?
“One of the main reasons why people love
Peter Parker and Spider-Man so much is you
can relate to him,” reasons Holland. “There’s not
a person on this planet who doesn’t go through
something that Peter Parker goes through,
whether it’s struggling with homework,
talking to girls, being late for school or having
bigger responsibilities outside of school... It’s
very reassuring that it doesn’t just happen
to you, it also happens to superheroes.”
Holland’s co-star Robert Downey Jr concurs.
“To me [growing up], Spider-Man was my whole
deal,” he told TV host Jimmy Kimmel. “He was
funny, he was cool... he was young, like us.”
Heck, if Spidey’s caught even Iron Man
in his web, you know he’s
onto a winner...
Corporation
different take on Spider-Man,” he told Sony
Pictures. “I’m obviously a lot younger so
we can really play on the youthful side of
the character. We’ve seen the soldier, we’ve
seen the billionaire, we’ve seen the god and
now it’s time to see the kid. I think it’s fun to
see what would happen if you gave a 15-year-
old superpowers. And I think what would
happen is he’d have a pretty great time.”