San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Taking its toll
Actor Tom Holland, now more than a year sober, says his new Apple TV+ series ‘Crowded Room’ helped him recognize mental health triggers
Tom Holland has a lot to celebrate: a new Apple TV+ series, a better understanding of his mental health and more than a year of sobriety.
The “Spider-man: No Way Home” star recently spoke with Entertainment Weekly to promote his new show, “The Crowded Room.” The psychological drama stars Holland as Danny Sullivan, a man who is arrested in a 1979 shooting in New York. He told EW that the role allowed him to explore a different side of his acting.
“I’m no stranger to the physical aspects of the job, doing the whole action-movie thing,” the “Uncharted” star said. “But the mental aspect, it really beat me up and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality.”
Holland said that preparation for “The Crowded Room” took a mental toll. After nine months of filming the series, he said it was difficult to disconnect from the character.
“THE CROWDED ROOM” Now streaming on: Apple TV+
“I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking, like, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character,’ ” he recalled.
He added: “It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
To portray Sullivan, Holland said he worked with psychiatrists to get a better understanding of his own mental health. According to EW, Holland is 17 months sober and has incorporated the behindthe-scenes work into his own life, especially when it comes to what the actor describes as “recognizing triggers” and defining “things that stress me out.”
Holland, who is also an executive producer for “The Crowded Room,” has been vocal about his mental health. In August, he explained why he took time off from social media.
“I have taken a break from social media for my mental health because I find Instagram and Twitter to be overstimulating, to be overwhelming,” he said on Instagram. “I get caught up, and I spiral when I read things about me online, and ultimately, it’s very detrimental to my mental state.”
Since then, Holland has returned to social media solely to promote his Brothers Trust charity organization, post the occasional red carpet photo and share news about “The Crowded Room.”
Holland has been less open about his sobriety. While staying home in April 2020 during the pandemic-related closures, Holland told Jimmy Kimmel about “drinking a lot” with his brothers and said he was hoping to limit his alcohol consumption.
“I actually said this weekend that I was going to stop drinking for a week. I was going to have a week off,” he said. “Literally, Monday morning ... Ryan Reynolds sent me a case of gin.”
Through “The Crowded Room,” Holland said he hopes viewers will “have more respect and more sympathy for people who are going through mental health issues.”
“I hope that people will feel educated about the powers of mental health, the struggles (and) our incredible abilities to survive,” he added.