Tom Holland Worries He Spent Too Much Time Trying To Look Cool Filming Uncharted

In an interview with GQ Magazine, Tom Holland spoke about filming the upcoming Uncharted movie and how he sometimes worried he was too busy looking cool to give a good performance. Here are highlights:

On his Spider-Man audition: “I was obviously nervous. I mean, it would be strange if I hadn’t been nervous. Thankfully, weirdly, something happened that loosened the pressure valve on my anxiety that day. I saw Ant and Joe and then I saw Downey standing there in the casting room. I went over. I introduced myself. But I remember thinking, ‘That’s a bit odd. He doesn’t look like I’d imagined him or remembered.’ Still, I shook his hand, telling him, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ saying how excited I was at the opportunity, how much it means to me…Well, then a door opens and in walks the actual Robert Downey Jr. I’d been chatting up his stunt double the entire time. So, actually, I got my jittery, loser vibe out of the way. And then, when I actually met Downey, I was a little more cool and collected.”

On the advice Downey gave him: “He took me to one side and said, ‘I remember the feeling. I’ve been through this before and it is incredibly stressful. Enjoy the process and let your body take over.’ Which is advice that I still use. I was doing a new Spider-Man scene just the other day and I had to eat a bowl of cereal. And I just couldn’t eat a bowl of cereal like a normal person – I was too in my head. And the director, Jon [Watts], goes, ‘What are you doing?’ And I was like, ‘Sorry, I’m leading with my head and I need to lead with my body.’ So it was good advice. And I think that’s the piece of advice that got me the Spider-Man job ultimately.”

On filming Uncharted: “As soon as you start worrying about ‘Do I look good in this shot?’ acting becomes something other than playing a character. I think there are elements of my performance in Uncharted where I kind of fell under that spell of being ‘I want to look good now. I want this to be my cool moment.’ I had to play this very tough, very stoic guy – basically be Mark Wahlberg. My character is supposed to be a fucking action hero in this moment! Look, I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know if I succeeded in that. But it was an important lesson learned, because, at times, it was less about land a mark and go through this scene and more about land a mark, stand like this and see my bulging biceps… It was a mistake and is something that I will probably never do again.”