Tom Holland Was Told He Could Play Spider-Man Because He Wasn’t Good-Looking

Spider-Man: No Way Home star Tom Holland revealed that he was initially told he would get the part because he wasn’t too good-looking. Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is coming to theaters on December 17, 2021, will follow Peter Parker as a spell gone wrong forces him to face off against the villains from previous iterations of the Spider-Man universe, including Sam Raimi’s trilogy and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man. The film is poised to make a huge splash at the box office, topping ticket pre-sale charts across the globe. In fact, the current projections are showing that No Way Home will have the best opening weekend of any Spider-Man film ever.

No Way Home will be Tom Holland’s third solo Spider-Man film and his sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe overall. Since his first appearance, Holland quickly rose to prominence as a young star. Although his commitments with the Marvel Universe (which now reportedly include an additional three Spider-Man movies) have prevented him from starring in too many other projects, he will also be helming the video game blockbuster Uncharted, which is coming to theaters next year.

While on The Graham Norton Show, Tom Holland shared a story from the audition process for Spider-Man: Homecoming. It was a grueling process that required “7 or 8 different auditions” over a period of about 7 months. On the way to his last audition, his driver confidently told him, “You know what, I think you’re gonna get it because the kid that I just drove there, he is so good looking.” This obviously wasn’t the confidence boost that Holland was looking for, but he got the part nonetheless. When he was on set filming, he ran into the driver yet again and he said to Holland, “I told you.” Read the full quote below:

It was a pretty typical process, it was just on a much grander scale. It was something that went over 7 months… I think I did 7 or 8 different auditions, I flew out to Atlanta multiple times for different screen tests. And then when I was going for my last audition… I was very nervous and I had this driver. Lovely guy, but a little bit too honest.

He’s sort of sitting there in the car and he’s chatting to me, chatting to me, chatting to me… I’m a polite person, but I also wanna be like, “Mate, please shut up, I’m trying to learn my line.” He’s looking at me in the mirror… sorta sitting there really awkwardly… looking at me.

He goes, “You know what kid, I think you’re gonna get it.”

And I’m like “Really, why?” And I was excited to hear that.

He goes, “You know what, I think you’re gonna get it because the kid that I just drove there, he is so good looking.”

Thank you! That’s exactly the confidence boost I need. And then… I got the part, I was lucky enough. I saw him a few months later when I was shooting the film, and he goes, “I told you.”

And I was like, “What did you tell me? That I was gonna get the part or that I was ugly?”

Before he was cast in Captain America: Civil War, the film that introduced him to the MCU, Tom Holland wasn’t exactly a known quantity in Hollywood. Although he had played Billy Elliot on stage on the West End, his previous biggest credit was a small role in In the Heart of the Sea, which also starred MCU hero Chris Hemsworth. However, that still doesn’t explain the driver’s mystifying approach to prognostication.

While the driver probably meant to say that Holland looked more believable as the teenaged Peter Parker, it’s difficult to imagine a way to take that compliment properly. However, the Spider-Man: No Way Home star himself admits that the driver was right. Whether or not he framed his prediction properly, he apparently knew enough about Marvel to figure out what they were looking for.