‘THIS WAS THE HARDEST FILM YET’

Tom Holland reveals the challenges of playing Spider-Man

Why was this the hardest Spider-Man for you? Creatively and emotionally, the arc that Spider-Man goes on in this is really dramatic, and he really matures, maybe matures more than Tom Holland has matured? [Laughs]

So I was really reaching at times to play this character in this film. And physically we really pushed the stunts to the limit. I don’t want to compare myself to Tom Cruise, but there’s an action sequence in Venice where I don’t have a mask on, so I did 90 per cent of the stunts. Have you had any input to the Spider-Man suit over the years?

It’s funny, the one thing I asked for was a zipper, so I could go to the bathroom and they didn’t give me one. On the first film, one day I spent 11 hours in the suit, and I rang my mum [and said,] “Mum, I had a really tough day today. I had the suit on for 11 hours. I didn’t go to the toilet,” and she kind of hung up the phone a little bit angry. The next day, the producer walks up to me and goes, “How are your kidneys?” I was like, “They’re fine, why are you asking?” He was like, “Your mum called yesterday, and she basically said you need to let my son go to the toilet.” Good old mum. How did you solve the problem? Basically, just take it off. It’s a very expensive suit, and I don’t think they want me going to the toilet in it! Peter Parker is a good student. What kind of student were you? I was a good student at school. I had bad attendance because I was working all the time. I didn’t fit in very well because I started working professionally when I was 11, so I grew up very quickly. I was surrounded by adults, and then when I went back to school, I was like, “Well, you’re all a bunch of idiots!”