If you’re anything like us, you may have watched the two Spider-Man: Homecoming trailers a few hundred times or so. Don’t judge us! We had to make that epic trailers breakdown for today’s Nerdist News. But even our preparations take a backseat to Tom Holland‘s efforts to become the big screen’s latest Peter Parker and Spider-Man. According to Holland, he went the full Cameron Crowe and enrolled in a real high school to get ready for the role of a lifetime.
Via ComingSoon, Holland answered questions from fans at the official Spider-Man Facebook page, where he went on to reveal that he secretly got into a New York high school in part because his own school experience in London was so radically different from Peter Parker’s life. “The coolest thing I think I did for the movie was I was enrolled in a high school in New York, in the Bronx, as a secret,” shared Holland. “No one knew who I was or what I was doing. I had a fake name and a fake accent. I went to school for three days. It was really fun. It was really interesting because New York high schools are so different to schools that I went to in London. Where I went to a school where you have to wear a suit and tie and it’s all boys, and for me it was the first time that I was in a classroom with girls. It was a really strange experience, it was really fun.”
In the domestic trailer that debuted last night, Spidey’s secret identity was seemingly revealed to one of his high school friends in a comedic way. That seemed to parallel what happened when Holland revealed who he was to one of the actual students. “I told one person,” recalled Holland. “I told one kid at the school. I was like ‘Hey man, listen, I’m actually Spider-Man.’ He did not believe me… At the time I hadn’t made the movie, so I didn’t have any pictures to show him to prove that I was Spider-Man…. No one believed me. Which is actually a good thing, because it makes me think that if Peter Parker went up in his school and was like ‘I’m Spider-Man,’ everyone would be like ‘Nah dude, no you’re not.”
Holland says that he only stayed in the school for three days, so it wasn’t a huge commitment. But we can totally see how he pulled it off. Holland is actually 20 years old, but he still easily passes for someone much younger. If Marvel Studios and Sony want to keep Spidey in high school for at least the next two or three films, they may have found the perfect guy to pull that off. Fortunately, he also seems to be terrific as both Peter and Spider-Man, and we’re ridiculously excited to see what he does in the first movie and beyond.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will be released on July 7, 2017.
What do you think about Holland’s high school tales? Let’s discuss in the comment section below!
Image: Marvel Studios/Sony Pictures
