Pod Insights The Rich Roll Podcast Tom Holland Is More Than Spider-Man: On Living Alcohol-Free, Acting With Authenticity, & Launching A Second Career About this episode Tom Holland is the star of Spider-Man, a nascent entrepreneur, and one of Hollywood’s most grounded young actors.
This conversation traverses the nexus of fame, personal growth, and Tom’s journey toward sobriety, which catalyzed his foray into the non-alcoholic beverage industry. We explore his evolution from child actor to global superstar, his therapeutic relationship with golf, and how he’s remained attuned to his authentic self amidst Hollywood’s gilded chaos.
Tom candidly reflects on navigating the intricacies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and his recent return to the verité of Shakespearean theatre.
Tom’s infectious enthusiasm is palpable. Enjoy!
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Transcript 19,303 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:05 Tom Holland? I'm a very confident person, but I'm more confident when I'm pretending to be someone else, because the ramifications of your actions aren't real. The Spider-Man of it all, that was the big turning point of where, like, everything changed. But it definitely was a steep learning curve, for sure.
1:24 Rich Roll? I think it's quite rare for a young superstar, a talent who has been in the public eye before even reaching his teens, to be as mature, as grounded, and self-aware as Tom Holland. A generation-defining actor, globally renowned for his turns as Peter Parker in Spider-Man, who's now exploring a different role himself.
1:45 Tom Holland? I think we all work too hard, and we should put our lives first. I've always lived by the idea that I work to live. I don't live to work. Pressure is a privilege to a certain degree, but sometimes too much pressure is too much pressure.
1:59 Rich Roll? From his West End stage debut at 11 to headlining mega blockbuster franchises, Tom's journey offers insights into fame, into mental health, into creative growth, and most importantly, into what matters most. Recently, Tom took a year-long break. He opened up about his sobriety and he even returned to the stage. Tom Holland is a guy who knows who he is and who he isn't. And this conversation covers all of it.
2:29 Tom Holland? People think a life of sobriety is sacrificing the fun, but it really isn't. You'll never wake up the next day and say, "God, I wish I had a drink last night." Never.
2:45 Rich Roll? So nice to meet you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for taking the time.
2:49 Tom Holland? Of course, my pleasure.
2:50 Rich Roll? You've done a few podcasts, but not a lot. I'm honored you would carve out the time.
2:55 Tom Holland? Yeah, no, honestly, it's my pleasure. I like doing podcasts because it feels more organic. I think when you do an interview, I feel very guarded.
3:04 Rich Roll? Yeah.
3:04 Tom Holland? And, you know, we just spoke earlier about this is a safe space to talk and stuff. So I really enjoy doing a podcast.
3:10 Rich Roll? Yeah, I think over the course of however long we talk, people are going to get a feel for the real you.
3:16 Tom Holland? Yeah.
3:16 Rich Roll? And I would suspect as somebody who's got, I don't know, like 65 million Instagram followers and basically every time you walk out your front door, you have to worry about somebody taking a photo of you. And these things turn into news cycles and it's very much out of your control. Like, there's a sense of like vulnerability that must come with that, that makes you, of course, you're going to be guarded.
3:38 Tom Holland? Yeah, I think it's like, you know, when surfers talk about when they crash or get hit by a big wave, the worst thing you can do is like tense up. You just have to kind of roll with the punches and like let it happen. I always find that if I go out in public and I try and resist the request for photos, I end up having a worse day. So if I just sort of go, you know, it's part of the job, lucky to be doing it, happy to take the pictures, I always have a better day. And I think that for me is just an example of like rolling with the punches rather than trying to fight back. It's like swimming upstream. Like, you're never going to be able to convince everyone to be nice about it and... To say please or whatever it is you're looking for. But yeah, it's just part of the job, I guess.
4:21 Rich Roll? It's uh, that's what they're paying you for.
4:24 Tom Holland? Yeah, exactly.
4:24 Rich Roll? To have to like, deal with all that bullshit, right? And to kind of be in a place of surrender and peace with it rather than like, uh, confrontational Alec Baldwin vibe.
4:36 Rich Roll? But after, you know, decades of that, you know, maybe it just gets under your skin. I mean, how could it not?
4:41 Tom Holland? Yeah, and I think as well, like, I mean, I don't know where Alec is from, but I know being a Londoner in London, if anyone speaks to you on the street as a Londoner, the first thought in your mind is like, why are you talking to me? If someone asks you the time, it's like, why do you want to know the time? London is so antisocial when it comes to like stranger to stranger. So I think as a true Londoner, growing up and then becoming famous, it took me a really long time to adjust to being approached on the street. I've got used to it now, it's like part of my life now. But when people used to ask me for photos really early on, especially after Spider-Man one had come out, I still couldn't quite understand why people wanted to take pictures with me. I used to find it really odd.
5:26 Tom Holland? And my reaction was like, no, I don't want to take a picture with you. But now I've like, I've ironed that crease out a little bit.
5:32 Rich Roll? Well, well, the interesting kind of ripple to that is that you didn't have, you know, a normal childhood or a maturation period where you could kind of figure out who you are and what's important in advance of all of that. Like, this is, this has been your experience, you know, since you were a young kid. So you've had to learn how to deal with this before your brain was fully, was fully formed. You know what I mean?
5:56 Tom Holland? Still ain't fully formed, I'll tell you that much for free.
5:58 Rich Roll? Yeah, uh, you and me both, my friend.
6:01 Tom Holland? I was really lucky that like, my life changed slowly. Like, I, I started when I was really young and then I had about 10 years before the Spider-Man thing happened. The Spider-Man of it all was the, that was the big turning point of where like, everything changed. And I was lucky that I had those formative years to sort of grow up, make mistakes, learn about set life, learn about the world of movie making. And then Spider-Man happened. Um, but it definitely was a steep learning curve for sure.
6:33 Rich Roll? But you seem like, first of all, you seem like a happy person. You strike me as somebody who's, who's really grounded, who understands what's important, who doesn't get caught up in a lot of the nonsense. Maybe the part of that is keeping in arms length with, you know, Hollywood, quote unquote Hollywood and, you know, living in the UK and having this strong family unit and surrounding yourself with friends. But it seems to have kept you sane. Do you still live in a house with like all your buddies?
7:02 Tom Holland? I do. Yeah, I do. And that is changing. My brother and my best friend are in a transitional period of moving out. We're sort of at that stage in our twenties now where we're like, we should all live by ourselves.
7:16 Rich Roll? It might be time.
7:18 Tom Holland? Yeah, but it's been great. And like my best friend Harrison, who I live with, I really admire, he set up this fantastic rum company called Hammer that he's been promoting and working on and stuff. And seeing him kind of build that from the ground up in the house has been such a pleasure because he's so driven and he's up every morning. He's out selling it. He's doing all this great stuff. And he's been a real, you know, inspiration for me for what we'll talk about later with, with Bureau. So yeah, so I love living with them and they're really great guys to live with. They're very tidy. They keep the house nice because I'm away a lot. It's nice to have people in the house.
7:55 Rich Roll? It's like a reverse entourage narrative, right?
7:58 Tom Holland? Yes.
7:58 Rich Roll? You guys are like healthy, eating, eating well.
8:01 Tom Holland? We all go to the gym together.
8:02 Rich Roll? Supporting each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would, it would make for a very different HBO series.
8:06 Tom Holland? It'd be a very boring TV show.
8:08 Rich Roll? Yeah.
8:08 Tom Holland? Yeah. Like, wow, they're so productive. But yeah, I like, living with my, with Harry and Harrison is great because they are so productive. And the thing with acting that I've always found quite difficult is that it's either a hundred percent or nothing.
8:24 Tom Holland? So like if you're on set, you're working flat out, you're exhausted. And if you're not working, you really don't have anything to do.
8:30 Rich Roll? Yeah. The only time that you get to practice your craft is when you're on set and getting paid to do it.
8:36 Tom Holland? Right. Like I'm not at home saying to Harrison, like, do you want to jump up and just run some lines quickly? You don't do that. I mean, I'm sure some people do. So what's been really nice working with him on this Bureau stuff is, is having stuff to do outside of the acting world that keeps my mind engaged and gives me a reason to be getting up and working and, and getting that training session in early in the morning. Because otherwise I just become really lazy.
9:01 Rich Roll? Yeah.
9:01 Tom Holland? And I play golf too much.
9:03 Rich Roll? You have three brothers?
9:04 Tom Holland? Three brothers, yeah.
9:05 Rich Roll? Two of them are twins, right?
9:07 Tom Holland? Two of them are twins. Sam is a chef. He's a great chef, which is awesome for us. He lives down the road. So whenever he's trying out new recipes, we always get a text. And he'll just deliver us great food. Harry's an aspiring filmmaker. He's just written a great script and then-
9:23 Rich Roll? Is he the one that had a short at Tribeca?
9:25 Tom Holland? Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's Harry. And um, and then Patty, our youngest, he's acting, he's doing really well, but he's still just a kid. It's really nice. He's now at the stage where he can come on our lads' holidays with us. So like, we used to go away, me and my mates, and play golf or whatever, and Patty would stay at home because he was only young. But now he's started coming with us. He's great. He fits in really well. Everyone loves him and his golf is getting much better. His golf was a little shitty for a while, but he's getting there.
9:54 Rich Roll? Your parents seem like great people, like your dad's a comedian.
9:57 Tom Holland? Mm-hmm.
9:58 Rich Roll? So he's able to kind of help guide you uh and avoid some of the pitfalls. Like, I'm sure he's seen every color of the entertainment business uh from top to bottom. And it just seems like you're a good group of people, you know what I mean? Like, like, just grounded, like I said, healthy, the relationship. They all seem like solid, like you're very lucky in that regard.
10:22 Tom Holland? Super lucky, super lucky. And my dad, especially having my dad, because working in the film industry is one thing, but being a part of the the comic circuit, I mean, that's got to be the toughest form of entertainment and dealing with that on a daily basis. And I, one of the things I really admire about my dad is when we were kids, if he had a bad gig, we would never know about it. He never wore it on his sleeve the next day, like, dad was always as if every gig he did, he absolutely ripped the roof off.
10:54 Rich Roll? Uh-huh.
10:54 Tom Holland? And then obviously, as you grow up and you, your relationship with your dad changes and it becomes a little bit more honest and open. You know, I'll call him up and he'll be driving back from a gig and he'll be telling me about he had a rough gig or something. And I've always just really admired his ability to shake that off. And I think as a younger actor, I learnt a lot from him when I would go for auditions that I really wanted and not got the gig.
11:17 Rich Roll? Right.
11:18 Tom Holland? And he would sort of, you know, son, you can't do all the jobs.
11:22 Rich Roll? Yeah, having a healthy relationship with rejection in a business where rejection is the norm.
11:27 Tom Holland? Exactly.
11:27 Rich Roll? Yeah.
11:28 Tom Holland? That for me has been such a valuable lesson I've learnt from him.
11:31 Rich Roll? But your relationship with rejection is a little unique. Like, let's go to the origin story here, because it all seems like it was predestined. It happened pretty quickly at a very young age. I mean, you were dancing as a young kid, nine, 10.
11:46 Tom Holland? Yeah.
11:47 Rich Roll? Were in a hip hop class. Walk us through like how that led to the first gig.
11:53 Tom Holland? Well, this is a really interesting question, actually, because only recently did I find my yearbook from my primary school. And I've always had this kind of narrative that I never wanted to be an actor. I love performing.
12:06 Rich Roll? I heard you say that.
12:06 Tom Holland? I love being on stage. I loved dancing, but acting was never something I wanted to do.
12:12 Rich Roll? I have a hard time believing that. I want to press you on that a little bit.
12:15 Tom Holland? Yeah, and I'm happy to get into it because I found this book, which predates any acting that I had done. So I basically used to go to this dance school. We did a show every year at the Royal Ballet School, and the headmaster asked me to audition for Billy Elliot on the West End. Long story short, I went through the audition process. They sent trainers to my school, which was really tough because it was a rugby school and all of a sudden like I was the one boy in the all boys school doing ballet in the gym at lunch. And that came with its own set of challenges. But I got the part, and it wasn't until I sort of got through Billy Elliot, I'd been cast in The Impossible, and I was working on set with Naomi, that I really started to think like, oh, I could be like
12:59 Tom Holland? an actor. Like, this is what I could do. But in this yearbook, I must be like, six or seven when I answered these questions. And the questions are like, what do you want to be when you grow up? What's your favorite color? What's your favorite food that gets served in the canteen? It's like kids' questions. And I wrote, what do you want to be when you grow up? I wrote actor. Which I think is really weird because I don't remember ever wanting to be an actor, but clearly I did.
13:26 Rich Roll? On an unconscious level.
13:27 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:28 Rich Roll? I mean, just to clarify, so when you did that performance and were noticed by that Billy Elliot choreographer, you were like 11?
13:38 Tom Holland? No, I would have been, I would have been nine.
13:40 Rich Roll? Nine?
13:41 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
13:41 Rich Roll? And then there were two years where that choreographer kind of helped you out with training and tried, saw something in you essentially, right? And tried to help you out so that two years later, when you auditioned for Billy Elliot, you were like up to speed, right? And so you were, were you 11 then? Like, when did the West End production begin? How old were you then?
14:02 Tom Holland? So I started auditioning when I was nine. And throughout the process of auditioning, they were training me in the interim. So it was a huge investment on their part because they, they were sending dancers to my house every day. I would go to these intensive summer schools where I would like live in this house for six weeks in the summer and train every day. I still hadn't got the part yet. And then it wasn't until, yeah, you're right. It was probably a two-year audition period. And then when I turned 11, I got the part. And because I was really small and young for my age, I was really, really underdeveloped. They put me on as Billy's best friend first to get some like theater experience and stage experience.
14:46 Tom Holland? And then while I was doing that character, I then trained and learned the Billy track and then did, did the show as Billy.
14:54 Rich Roll? If you had to guess or estimate, what do you think that choreographer saw in you when you were nine that led her to making that investment? I mean, clearly there was something. There was some quality about what you were doing as such a young person where she thought there's something special here worth exploring.
15:14 Tom Holland? I'm not, I'm not sure what it is off the jump. I couldn't tell you that it was like an overwhelming sense of talent or anything like that. I think sometimes with acting, being very authentic is something that comes natural to people. And I've always been a very genuine person. When I went to my first audition, I was by far the worst dancer in the room, but I was the last kid there. They would like cull kids. So we would be there for five hours and every hour they'd say like, if you're between numbers five and 25, you can go home. Everyone else gets to stay. And I was the last kid there. I did no singing, no dancing, just acting stuff with the director.
15:55 Tom Holland? So maybe he just thought that I was very honest and was quite open and emotionally ready. The dancing and that sort of stuff came later. And I think I've always been very driven. And if you put the work in front of me, I'm really good at getting it done. I'm not very good at putting the work in front of me myself. I need someone to help me do that.
16:16 Rich Roll? Mm hmm.
16:16 Tom Holland? Whereas my brother, Harry or Harrison, with what he's done with Hammer, like the way he's built his little company and driven it from the ground up. And he gets up and does it every day is amazing. I couldn't do that.
16:30 Rich Roll? You're a team player.
16:30 Tom Holland? I'm, I'm like, tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it. But don't ask me to like, come up with the strategy to do it.
16:36 Rich Roll? So Billy Elliot becomes this thing. You get a lot of attention. You're doing some press and TV.
16:42 Tom Holland? Mm hmm.
16:42 Rich Roll? This leads to this audition for The Impossible.
16:46 Tom Holland? Yeah.
16:46 Rich Roll? Which you book, like, basically the first movie that's on your radar that gets, you know, sent your way.
16:52 Tom Holland? Yeah.
16:53 Rich Roll? You get it and you're in it and you're how old at this point? This is the tsunami movie with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, your first movie.
17:01 Tom Holland? I would have maybe been 13 and then we maybe shot the film when I was 14.
17:05 Rich Roll? Uh huh.
17:06 Tom Holland? I did a few auditions in town. My granny test took me to my first audition. It went really well. And I remember the director, Juan Antonio Bayona. He basically asked me to just improvise a scene where I had to say goodbye to my mom. There was no context. I didn't know the stakes. I didn't know that it was like a life or death situation. But just being a very vulnerable, honest and open kid, I just started talking about saying goodbye to my mom and burst into tears. And I guess that's what they were looking for. They were like, yeah, he can cry. Get him.
17:39 Rich Roll? But even being so young, you must be thinking, well, I don't know about like dad and all this rejection stuff. Like this is going pretty good. Like it's just going to be this way going forward.
17:47 Tom Holland? Yeah. So the interesting period of any young actor's career is when you're too old to play a kid and you're not quite old enough to play an adult.
17:55 Rich Roll? And not many are able to traverse that canyon.
17:59 Tom Holland? It's a very, very tricky journey. And that's why I've been so blessed that Spider-Man came along.
18:04 Rich Roll? And you still have this boyish face.
18:06 Tom Holland? Yeah, right. I still, especially when I cut my hair, I just did this play in London. And I had really long hair, similar to yourself. And I cut it all off with the hopes that like it would make me look tougher. And I looked in the mirror and was like, I look like a 12 year old.
18:20 Rich Roll? Right.
18:21 Tom Holland? And I went to rehearsals the next day and everyone was like, oh, you look so young. I was like, fuck, that is not what I was going for.
18:27 Rich Roll? Boyish looks. And then having to navigate that canyon to manhood and the roles that come with that. Yeah, there's a fallow period for most actors, even even the best, when they're in that in between stage.
18:40 Tom Holland? Yeah, I remember my dad had a talk with me, sat me down. I was auditioning for this film called November Criminals. I would have been maybe 15 or something.
18:50 Rich Roll? Sure. Sasha Zhervasi.
18:52 Tom Holland? Yes.
18:52 Rich Roll? Who's a buddy of mine. I was with him yesterday.
18:54 Tom Holland? I really wanted that job. I thought it was a really fun script. I really liked the character. There was loads of dialogue, which I really liked with the impossible. It was more of a like reactionary performance. I didn't really have much to say. So I really, really wanted this job. And I remember being in my mom and dad's old kitchen. And I might have thrown something on the floor out of frustration because I'd found out I hadn't got it. And my dad really put me in check. Like, you're a kid. This is the first audition you've gone for that you didn't get. Get over yourself.
19:27 Rich Roll? Right. I think that part went to Ansel Elgort.
19:30 Tom Holland? I think it did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he did a good job, too.
19:33 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah.
19:33 Tom Holland? I liked the film.
19:34 Rich Roll? So your first taste with rejection.
19:36 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:37 Rich Roll? You mentioned that you just did, you were just on the West End, you did Romeo and Juliet, which is pretty cool. And that came on the heels of taking a year off after you did the crowded, the crowded room.
19:51 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, correct.
19:52 Rich Roll? Which, you know, as I understand, was a very intense experience for you. But one, I also feel like. Was misrepresented in the press. Like, I listened to some interviews and I read some stuff and my sense was that there was this narrative that was being imposed upon you, that it was so exhausting that you needed to take this break and they wanted to kind of portray it as some kind of mental health, you know, crisis that you were going through. When you were consistently clear throughout, like, hey, I'd already planned this. I was gonna take this time off. And I think as a young person, to have the sense of self and the awareness to say, hey, like, I need breaks from time to time, rather than to just
20:35 Rich Roll? be on this constant, you know, hamster wheel, more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, I think speaks to your maturity and your perspective.
20:44 Tom Holland? Thank you. I was actually very disappointed with how the press ran with it. But then, like I said earlier, you can't fight with the press. You're swimming upstream. And I kind of just rolled with the punches and let it happen. I think it's really disappointing that a young person in my decision, who's lucky enough to have the power to say, I'm gonna take some time off for myself, gets painted as, you know, something negative. I think we all work too hard and we should put our lives first. I've always lived by the idea that I work to live. I don't live to work. And I think that it's really unfortunate that that's what people took from the idea of me taking a break.
21:25 Rich Roll? It's additionally ironic, given that we're kind of in this discourse or dialogue around mental health right now, from a mainstream awareness perspective, even with, you know, as I mentioned to you beforehand, like, I was in Paris for the Olympics. And, you know, mental health is something everybody's talking about, whether it's Simone Biles or Michael Phelps and all these athletes who have made a point of saying that this is an important thing. And there seems to be a respect around that, but maybe not so much in your world.
21:56 Tom Holland? Yeah, you know, I think it's very, it's very different and it's very obvious to see how someone like Simone Biles would be affected by mental health, the pressure that she's under to perform at the level that she performs at. She's absolutely incredible. We sat down and watched her this year and I can totally see how that pressure would get to anyone. You know, pressure is only natural and pressure is a privilege to a certain degree, but sometimes too much pressure is too much pressure. And I think mental health, you know, I took a break from social media once and felt the need to kind of announce it because I didn't want to, I didn't want people to worry that, you know, I had disappeared or something. I don't know. And that also was met with a negative reaction of like, oh, you can't hack it. Like,
22:41 Tom Holland? you can't handle social media. And I just, I just think that sometimes it's important to look up and engage with what's around you. And, and I find for me with social media, I can easily sit on the couch for four hours and scroll. And I haven't had Instagram on my phone. I'll download it to, to post something or download it if a friend of mine's post something and I want to like it for them. But 99% of the time I don't have it on my phone. And my life is so much better for not being completely glued to, to this felt false worlds that we have on our phones. But it's a shame. And I really hope it changes because I think
23:22 Tom Holland? self-preservation is so important. And only a fool would say to you, you should work until you crack. Because if you crack, it's going to take you longer to get back to full fitness and, and work at your top capacity. So for me, like, taking these strategic little breaks where you can rest and recoup and come back your best self is really important and something that should be heralded rather than chastised.
23:47 Rich Roll? Sure. If you want to have longevity in your career, it doesn't make any sense that you would play all out and leave everything on the field with a performance, whether it's the crowded room or Romeo and Juliet, and then immediately go into something else.
24:01 Tom Holland? Yeah.
24:02 Rich Roll? Like, there's a manic kind of attitude around that, or maybe a fear response, like, I have to always be booking because maybe the phone's not going to call. That comes from insecurity or a place of fear. But having...
24:16 Rich Roll? Like a healthy, strong sense of of yourself and knowing like, hey, you know, I I bring something to the table. It's not going to disappear if I take a minute off. Like, I'm thinking of like, a great example would be like, if you're great, there's always going to be a demand, right? Look at Oasis. How long? It's been 25 years or whatever. And like, they're going to make $400 million because finally they got their shit together. They'll make more money on this tour than they did over the course of all of their albums. You know what I mean? The point being like, if you have the goods, you don't need to be in a hurry, you know? But to be, what are you, 28?
24:53 Tom Holland? 28, yeah.
24:54 Rich Roll? 28, to be that young and to like, own that, I think, also speaks to to character. Because I can imagine myself at 28, or most 28 year olds who are just so hungry to, you know, be climbing all the time. And there's a kind of a hustle porn culture out there where where it is frowned upon if you take a minute, take a beat to like, reassess and reboot the operating system. So the next time out, you can give the best of what you have.
25:20 Tom Holland? 100%. I don't operate well, or as well as I would when I'm tired. If I don't sleep well, or it's the thing I struggle with the most is sleep when I'm working. So for me, to to be able to have some time to recoup and come to set, or come to work, or whatever I'm doing, 100%, it makes a world of a difference.
25:38 Rich Roll? Romeo and Juliet, was that your first time back on stage since Billy Elliot?
25:42 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, first time.
25:44 Rich Roll? And my sense is that like, stage is your jam, right? Like fundamentally, setting aside all this other stuff, there is kind of like a love for that.
25:51 Tom Holland? Yeah, it's definitely like the birthplace of of my career. And it's been so long since I'd done it that it felt like the first time. And it was an amazing experience, you know? I wasn't planning on doing theater. I just kind of was, I was at home. I had taken my year off. There's obviously been a whole load of things that have happened in our industry that kind of put a pause on a bunch of things. And I was like, itching to find something to do. I've always been really scared of going back on stage because it's just feels so exposing.
26:25 Rich Roll? Yeah, nowhere to hide.
26:27 Tom Holland? There's nowhere to hide and and.
26:29 Rich Roll? It's different from mocap.
26:31 Tom Holland? Yeah, it's different, yeah. When you can change something or say, could you just move my arm a little bit further out? And I think that's what really excites me, like, when something stresses me out. I was chatting to my friend yesterday about this, actually. I work really well when I don't think about whether or not I should do it or not. Like with the play, they called me up and they said, look, if you want to do this, you need to let us know today because we got to book the theatre. And we'd been speaking about doing this for maybe five days. I hadn't spoken to my family about it. I hadn't really spoken to my girlfriend about it. And on the phone, I was like, fuck it, I'll do it. I'm happy to do it. And then I started to panic because I was like, what have I done? Like, why am I doing this? But when I put myself under that kind of pressure, that's when I do my best work.
27:16 Tom Holland? When I start feeling really uncomfortable because it, that level of uncomfortableness drives me to do the work and be focused and, and learn my lines and break it down and understand the language and try and do something different and unique to what's been done before. But I loved it. I really loved it.
27:34 Rich Roll? There's two things here. First, you're tackling Shakespeare.
27:38 Tom Holland? Yeah.
27:38 Rich Roll? So it's no small.
27:39 Tom Holland? And I've never done that before.
27:40 Rich Roll? In the UK.
27:41 Tom Holland? In London.
27:41 Rich Roll? For UK audiences. So, you know, the degree of difficulty just goes like through the roof, right? And then secondarily, how long was the run?
27:50 Tom Holland? The run was three months. It was eight shows a week. And it was fucking tough.
27:55 Rich Roll? Yeah, like having to do that every day, sometimes twice a day, right? I was, I was in London last summer and I was with my youngest daughter who's seventeen now and we went to go see Paul Meskell in Streetcar. And it's such a visceral performance, right? And he's, you know, and he has the legacy of Brando on his shoulders, like the pressure that would come with that. And then I was just imagining like, this guy's got to do this every day, sometimes twice a day.
28:23 Tom Holland? Yeah, it was intense.
28:25 Rich Roll? That's super intense. And then you do the backstage thing and like you have to go greet all your fans every night. Did you do that? Open up the back door and sign the autographs and do all that on top of the whole thing?
28:36 Tom Holland? Well, I guess a bit of a blessing was that we had loads of people show up and backstage was was really like a red carpet every night. So what I would do is I would sign cards in my dressing room. Sign like a hundred cards and then the security outside the theatre would hand them out. Cause it just, I wouldn't have been able to get to everyone.
28:55 Rich Roll? It would have been too crazy.
28:56 Tom Holland? So I kind of came out and did a smile and a wave and, and said thank you and stuff and then got in the car. But the keen fans that got out first got a little signed card. But it was an amazing experience. I mean, trying to stay mentally focused and not allow the show to kind of run on autopilot was really a real challenge. Trying to stay engaged and make sure that you're constantly listening and, you know, we'd have understudies come on at certain times and they would change the tone of a scene or the speed of a scene and you had to be able to pivot live. Which I found really difficult, but by the end, a skill that I didn't know I needed
29:37 Tom Holland? that I've really kind of improved upon. Cause you know, when you work with Downey on set, what's great about him is he'll improvise and if it lands, he'll do that again. But what's quite nice for you is you know that, oh, he's gonna say that again. So I have some time to prepare. He's so quick. That even if I write a joke that he has no idea about, and then I improvise a line, he'll use my joke to set up a punchline of his own joke somehow. He's like so good like that.
30:06 Rich Roll? You're never gonna match wits with that guy.
30:08 Tom Holland? No.
30:09 Rich Roll? Yeah.
30:09 Tom Holland? And I think that having done the play and being, being able to pivot in the ways that we had to pivot when things would go wrong or someone would skip a speech or, or you know, an audience member's phone went off and you'd have to kind of keep going and not let that distract you. I'm really excited to see how I've improved as a performer the next time I go on set. Cause it really feels like a great place to sharpen the tools and try some new things out and you get a little bit more freedom. Cause you know, once the director leaves, it's kind of your show. And you're working with the actors at warm up saying like, tonight I want to try it a little bit like this. Do you mind if we just, can you set me up with this line, change the rhythm slightly so I can land this joke?
30:52 Tom Holland? And it was such a pleasure. It was such a pleasure.
31:05 Rich Roll? ¿Cómo tomas decisiones sobre los proyectos con los que quieres involucrarte? Estoy diciendo esto pensando en alguien que está en la MCU.
31:16 Tom Holland? Sí.
31:16 Rich Roll? Y con eso hay expectativas y presiones y una especie de trayectoria predeterminada para un actor de tu estatura. Pero cuando miro las opciones que has tomado, estás haciendo todo tipo de interesantes, diferentes opciones que te están desafiando y algunas funcionan y otras no. Pero todo se siente como un experimento y tú tratando de encontrar nuevas formas de expresarte.
31:42 Tom Holland? Creo que eso es perfectamente dicho, es un experimento. Y como traté de no pensar en qué hará esto para mi carrera. ¿Es esto un piece de premios o es esto un movie de la sala de cine? Solo, ¿es algo que me gustaría ver? Es realmente mi mayor indicador para saber si lo haría o no. Y solo amo ser desafiado. Lo que me gusta de mi trabajo es que puedo probar cosas nuevas y vivir en diferentes skins cada vez y entonces y convertirme en estos diferentes personajes. Y solo amo la idea de ser dicho, "Bien, vas a Nebraska durante cuatro meses para filmar un movie". Estoy como, "Bien, genial". Nunca iría allí normalmente, así que sería genial ir y pasar un poco de tiempo en algún lugar.
32:24 Tom Holland? Así que solo amo todo lo que viene con él y es menos para mí sobre, ¿esto va a ser bueno para mi carrera? Y más solo, ¿me gustaría disfrutar de hacer esto? Leí un script hace unos días, que no hablaré porque todavía está siendo comprado en la ciudad. Pero fue como, es la primera vez en mi carrera que he leído algo y he pensado, "Simplemente no tengo la energía para filmar eso ahora mismo". Fue demasiado intenso y fue mucho acción y todo ese tipo de cosas. Y fue la primera vez que he dicho, "¿Sabes qué? Leí esas secuencias, no quiero hacer esas ahora mismo".
32:56 Rich Roll? When you're thinking about the choices that you're making, in addition to like, kind of just what lights you up generally, is it the script, is it the director? I'm sure you have a list of directors you want to work with, ambitions about, you know, maybe long term, like what you want your career to look like and the various roles that you want to explore, but do you have a sense of what you want to do next or even what that is? It sounds like you haven't decided yet.
33:19 Tom Holland? No, I have like three or four things that I'm kind of juggling with right now. The biggest of which is my sort of re-entry into the MCU and what that looks like. It's been a really fantastic experience that Tom and Kevin have allowed me into the kind of creative bubble of Marvel and I've got to see firsthand how these films are built from the ground up. It's been so fun to just sort of sit in the room and see these guys pitching ideas back and forth and every now and then I'll chime in with something. And first and foremost with Marvel, I'm a fan. I grew up loving those movies. So to sit in the boardroom with them and they've got this great mural on the wall
34:01 Tom Holland? of all the heroes and to kind of hear them talk about the movies and I'll come up with an idea and they'll say, no, you can't do that because we're doing that in the new Captain America movie.
34:11 Rich Roll? It's all mapped out.
34:12 Tom Holland? It's really cool to just see how they've got this vision for the future. And I just love being a part of that. But in terms of what I want to do next, I just love working on set. I love the camaraderie. I love the community.
34:26 Rich Roll? And you have Akiva Goldsman.
34:29 Tom Holland? And we have Akiva, who was fantastic. And to be honest, wrote the best scripts I've ever read. It was so easy to say yes to that job. When I started reading his work, I was like, wow, this would be such a pleasure to do.
34:39 Rich Roll? He's the gold standard.
34:40 Tom Holland? He is the gold standard. He's fantastic and he did a great job and he was so, he was very brave to tackle that subject matter in the way that he did, considering his past and his background, to touch on some of the personal things that have happened to him in his life. I think he's something that we should celebrate and admire because I'm sure he's helped a lot of people that have been through similar things through that show. So I'm really proud of him that he tackled it in the way he did.
35:09 Rich Roll? Yeah, well, I'm sure he's proud of you.
35:10 Tom Holland? I'd hope so.
35:11 Rich Roll? For how you acquitted yourself in that role.
35:14 Tom Holland? Yeah, it was a tough one.
35:15 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah.
35:16 Tom Holland? The haircut alone was a tough one.
35:17 Rich Roll? I kind of liked it. I thought it was cool. I thought, I didn't know that that was a wig. I was like, you should grow your hair long.
35:23 Tom Holland? It was my real hair.
35:24 Rich Roll? Oh, it was. Oh, they colored it.
35:26 Tom Holland? Yeah, they'd made it darker. And then the studio were really against the idea of me having bangs. And I just really thought that it was like the icing on the cake that would set the character apart. A good tip I got from Jake Gyllenhaal, actually, when we worked together, who I love, was that you can do so much of your performance in hair and makeup. So much of it can be done before you've even opened your mouth or opened your eyes. And I've really taken that to heart, you know, like subtle nods to to different characters here and there, or slightly changing the color of your hair, or or even something like changing the color of your eyebrows ever so slightly. I think really helps disconnect the audience from who you are, especially when you play a character as high profile as Spider-Man.
36:11 Tom Holland? You're so recognizable as that character. So the studio were like, no, you can't cut your hair like that. We're not allowing it. We don't want you to do it. And I went straight to my trailer and sat down with Rachel and was like, right, let's fucking cut my hair off then.
36:24 Rich Roll? Oh, no. How'd that go over when they became aware of that?
36:26 Tom Holland? I remember walking into the camera test and the cinematographer was not happy. But I actually think it was a really good decision. I think it just brings a level of authenticity to the character and and it's so different and unique to that time that it works. But Bless and Dare, she always talks about, she's like, no, I thought you were handsome with it, but I know she's she's just being kind.
36:55 Rich Roll? Yeah.
36:55 Tom Holland? It was a rough look.
36:57 Rich Roll? What do people not understand about being part of this MCU universe? I mean, this isn't just a series of movies. This isn't just its own cottage industry. This is almost like a nation state. Like, it's so massive. There are so many team members and people that contribute to these movies, so many moving pieces. It's it's bigger than any actor. It's bigger than Robert Downey Jr., you know, it's it's just so gigantic. Do you find that disorienting? It sounds like you found it nourishing and and all the actors that are in these movies always talk about how much they love making these movies.
37:36 Tom Holland? I think firstly, what sets it apart from anything else is is the community and the sense of ownership over the characters from the fans to the studio. I feel like it's the only studio. That is working in unison with the fan group. You know, like fan service is a really big thing at Marvel.
37:58 Rich Roll? Right, and you have to walk this delicate balance between fan service and moving the story forward in new and different ways.
38:07 Tom Holland? Yeah, and I just think that what's so beautiful about the entire thing as an entity is its community. And when I say community, it goes from Kevin Feige to the most diehard fan and everyone in between. And for me, I really love being a part of that. But then in terms of like making the films, I think what Marvel have done so well, and Sony, I mean, I always have to give my credit to Tom Rossman at Sony, because he's been like my, my American dad since I've moved over here and started working over here, like work stuff, personal stuff, like he's always the guy I call. I had a meeting with him the other day, where I took my dog to his office, he won't mind me telling me this
38:48 Tom Holland? story. So I took him to the office, and Tom's like, oh, I love dogs. Dogs are great, you can bring the dog, it's fine. And I'm sitting in his beautiful office in Sony, and we're chatting, catching up, talking about golf, talking about projects that we'd love to do together. And my dog is like, trying to get up on the couch, and I'm obviously trying to be mindful. I don't know what Tom's like leniency is with dog behavior. So eventually, he's like, he can go on the couch, don't worry about it, it's fine. So the noon jumps up on the couch, and it's this beautiful like white couch, you know, the ones with like the, they're like ever so slightly fluffy, expensive.
39:23 Rich Roll? Yeah.
39:24 Tom Holland? It's a box office bonus couch, for sure. And noon just starts digging in the couch. Like, you know, when dogs do that thing where they like dig in, and I'm trying to be like, no, noon, noon, stop it. And you can tell Tom, it's like through gritted teeth, like, it's fine, don't worry about it, it's fine, it's absolutely fine, don't worry about it. But back to what I was saying, sorry, I think that they do-
39:44 Rich Roll? I'm a ma- sorry, I just have this flash, I'm imagining Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder playing Les Grossman in the studio, exactly like throwing an absolute fit at something like that, yeah.
39:54 Tom Holland? No, but he was very gracious about it. But I could tell that in the back of his mind, he was like- Can you please get your dog to stop digging up my couch?
40:02 Rich Roll? Uh huh.
40:02 Tom Holland? But I love Tom. I owe him a lot. He's been very, very kind to me and a great mentor and someone I've learned a lot from. But again, sorry, what I was saying is that when you're on set of a Marvel movie, they're big, there's green screens, there's crews of a few hundred people. But again, that community that Marvel and Sony build is so strong that it doesn't feel like a $200 million movie. It feels like this really small intimate little character piece. And that's what I think works so well with the movies is that the fans feel like they can connect to the characters on a personal level. Rather than it being just kind of Joe Blow action movie.
40:42 Rich Roll? What have you learned other than what you already shared about working with people like Downey? Cause you're surrounded by so many great actors when you're, I mean, I'm imagining Avengers, you're just like, they're all there.
40:54 Tom Holland? Yeah, it's awesome.
40:55 Rich Roll? Yeah.
40:55 Tom Holland? Especially when I was like really young, I think I was 20 or maybe I was even 19 when I was shooting Civil War. And you know, I was a diehard, well, I am a diehard fan of the studio. I felt like I sort of won some competition and was allowed to like be on set for the day. But then when I had to take my mark and do my scene with Downey, it was a really overwhelming experience and I'm very grateful to Downey because I think I've told this story before. When I did my audition, my audition was like eight pages of dialogue. It was a long scene. Typically an audition will be two pages.
41:30 Rich Roll? Your original Spider-Man audition.
41:32 Tom Holland? My screen test with Downey. So this was kind of like the final step. Although they did add another step, which was like a physical test where we had to do some fight scenes and stuff. And the scene with Downey was great. The audition went really well. I was told by my agents to learn the lines exactly. And that was kind of like a bit of advice, but also because I'd been really lazy earlier in self tapes and I would rewrite things and change it so it fit my mouth better. But they said in this instance, you have to learn it perfectly.
42:03 Tom Holland? And then when we did my first take with Downey, he just started improvising and changing everything in the script, which kind of gave me license to kind of follow him. And I think something I learned from Downey is like, you can't beat him, but you can ride his coattails and those are good coattails to ride. So in that scene, I just kind of followed his lead and we improvised and we did a bunch of stuff. And I thought after that audition, I was like, oh, I've definitely got this. Like that went so well.
42:33 Rich Roll? Is this the one where he helicoptered in?
42:35 Tom Holland? That's the one where he helicoptered in. But what he did, which is so great and so sweet is when I got to set, after I'd got the gig and we came to set, it was me, I was meeting Marisa Tomei for the first time. And I was now working with the Russo's and Downey was there. My scene had been cut down significantly from what I'd done in the audition to now
42:58 Tom Holland? a page and a half, or maybe even two pages. And we start shooting the scene and Downey piped up and was like, where's all the kids' lines gone? And the Russo sort of said, well, look, you know, this is already a hundred and forty page script. Like we can't spend too much time on this. And Downey was the one that was like, no, no, no, you're going to want to spend some time on this. Like let's shoot the whole thing from the audition. You can always cut it, but you'd want to have it. And they used all of it.
43:24 Rich Roll? Yeah.
43:25 Tom Holland? So I owe that to him.
43:25 Rich Roll? That's cool.
43:26 Tom Holland? And I think that's really cool. And I'd love to one day do that. If I'd be lucky enough to somehow bring Mars Morales into my Spider-Man universe and into the MCU, I'd love to to do for a young kid what Downey did for me.
43:40 Rich Roll? Yeah, well, it's a way of honoring the introduction of a new character. And a certain level of respect, like in that audition, clearly he's intentionally throwing curveballs at you to see how you can handle it. And when you were like, all right, he's, he's on his game, like, you know, we're in this together.
43:58 Tom Holland? But that's, it's an interesting thing you asked about, like, what have you learned? And it's like, when you work with someone like Chris Pratt. He's so funny. It's like, don't try and out funny him. Try and elevate him to be funny. Like, if you're in a scene with someone and the audience is laughing, I think both people in that scene are winning. And I think sometimes I would really try and get hung up on like, I wanna be the one that's getting the laughs. But I think there's just as much honour in like, setting up the laugh. And when you're working with someone like Downey or Chris, who are just so effortlessly funny, let them be funny and try and make them funnier. And that's something I've learned. Again, don't swim upstream when you can swim downstream.
44:39 Rich Roll? Well, that's back to the team sport aspect of the whole thing.
44:43 Tom Holland? Cause at the end of the day, it's like, there's no pictures on a scorecard. Like, you want the movie to be as good as it can be and as successful as it can be. And if that means that, you know, we're working with Jacob on Spider-Man, his character is the funny one. I find the humour in being stoic and his humour comes from being funny.
45:02 Rich Roll? Right, because his humour is elevated the more stoic you are.
45:05 Tom Holland? Exactly.
45:05 Rich Roll? If you're trying to be funny, then it destroys the whole scene. So are you in service to the scene or are you in service to yourself?
45:11 Tom Holland? And that's the biggest part of acting is like being able to separate yourself from your own vanity, which we all have. We all look in the mirror before we leave work today and go, God, I'm having a bad hair day or I'm having a good hair day. And the moment you're thinking on camera of like, do I look good? Do I sound good? Is this funny? The audience can subliminally pick up on that, I think. So it's important to leave vanity at the door.
45:37 Rich Roll? Yeah. Easier said than done when you're in the biggest movies in the world and these movies are grossing in excess of a billion dollars and your face is everywhere. Like, and you're a young dude, right? So how, you know, how did you avoid the pitfalls and the common mistakes that a lot of young actors make when their star sense quickly like that? I mean, you said you had, you had years in advance of that, but still you're pretty young, you know? Many a person has fallen prey to that, those, the allures of this town.
46:12 Tom Holland? Yeah, it's interesting. I was having a conversation about this sort of thing recently. And we, I was chatting with a fellow actor of mine and we were sort of saying like, I miss the days when like getting the gig was the win.
46:25 Tom Holland? But now the gig being successful is what is the win. But I feel like I held on to that for a really long time. Even after Spider-Man, getting a new job was just as exciting as being cast as Spider-Man. And I think that having that kind of freedom and in some ways ignorance to like what it was that I was doing was really helpful for me in building confidence in my own capabilities. So I just, I just never really give it much thought. I try not to think about the fact that millions of people will see it and I'm gonna be scrutinized. It's more that thing of like, if I like it and I know I've done my best. A really poignant piece of advice I got from my dad, again, my dad is like my go-to.
47:10 Tom Holland? If I'm struggling with something or if I need some help or a bit of a boost, like I'll call my dad. I really admire him. He told me a story about Lee Evans, who's a really famous comedian in the UK. He's brilliant, very performative, very cartoon-like, creates these fantastic characters on stage. He sweats like a pig, like he'll wear a suit and within 10 minutes of being on stage, he's like dripping with sweat. And my dad told me a story about when they were kids, they did a gig together at like a pub, maybe a couple hundred people in this pub. And Lee was backstage putting eye drops in. And my dad was a bit like, what, they might have been in their late twenties at this point.
47:54 Tom Holland? So what are you doing? And he goes, oh, it makes my eyes glisten. And my dad kind of thought to himself, but like, Lee, there's only 200 people out there. You're not playing in an arena. And I think what my dad took from that lesson, which he passed on to me was like, whether it's a hundred thousand people or five people in the audience, your best is a minimum. You can't half-ass anything, you can't mark through anything. And I think I've taken that on board quite heavily. I've always given everything a hundred percent. I remember that all the time, my dad telling me that story about, I've never met Lee and I know that they were really close when they were younger. But that story always really stuck with me.
48:31 Rich Roll? Yeah, it's cool. The little things are the big things.
48:34 Tom Holland? Yeah, they make a difference.
48:35 Rich Roll? Yeah.
48:36 Tom Holland? And those little tiny details, like Jake was talking about with makeup, like those tiny attention to details can really be a make or break. In building a convincing character.
48:47 Rich Roll? But even if no one notices, like you notice.
48:49 Tom Holland? You notice, yeah.
48:50 Rich Roll? For your own relationship with what you do.
48:53 Tom Holland? Nothing brings me more pride than sitting in a theater, watching something I've been a part of, and seeing an idea I had come to life. Nothing makes me more happy.
49:03 Rich Roll? That's gotta be a crazy experience.
49:05 Tom Holland? Especially when it comes to something like a Spider-Man movie where like, had I not been in them, I'd be sat here watching them because I love them.
49:13 Rich Roll? Right.
49:15 Tom Holland? To be given the grace and an opportunity to kind of be involved in the creative of those films is one of the coolest things I've ever experienced.
49:24 Rich Roll? Well, to that point of being a fan, there's this iconic video of you, you know, as a young kid, I don't know how old you were, being asked like if you could play a superhero, who would you play? And you and you say Spider-Man and I can't help but think reflecting on that like, either you're an incredibly powerful manifester or there's some kind of predestiny at play here. Like the dancing, like, of course, all the dance experience plays in perfectly to Spider-Man. You love Spider-Man and this kind of like unfolds in your life. There's a surreal, there's a surreal aspect to the whole thing, I guess is what I'm saying.
50:01 Tom Holland? Do you believe in manifestation?
50:04 Rich Roll? I do.
50:04 Tom Holland? Yeah.
50:05 Rich Roll? I do. We all have a purpose, I think.
50:07 Tom Holland? Sure.
50:07 Rich Roll? And our, and our job, our job here on earth is to grow, is to evolve.
50:11 Tom Holland? Yeah.
50:11 Rich Roll? And to learn who we are, we're all in a constant relationship with becoming, right? And I think the more attuned you are to yourself, the better position you are in to kind of manifest or realize whatever that thing is that you're here to do. And it's different for everybody, right?
50:29 Tom Holland? Totally, yeah.
50:29 Rich Roll? I mean, you're in a very heightened situation, but you know, not everybody can be LeBron James. But you know, I think everybody has a thing and our job is to kind of discover what that thing is.
50:39 Tom Holland? Hmm.
50:40 Rich Roll? And so the manifestation piece is the kind of action oriented aspect of it, but there's also. A more gentle kind of letting go and allowing that has to happen.
50:50 Tom Holland? Yeah.
50:51 Rich Roll? In that process.
50:52 Tom Holland? Well, it's that knife edge, isn't it? It's that fine balance of even though in that interview I said, I want to be Spider-Man in the future. I didn't just sit back and relax and then it happened like there's manifesting, but there's also work that goes into it. So it's that fine balance of is it the universe that's making it happen? Or is it something that you're make making happen yourself? And I honestly think it's probably a little bit of both.
51:17 Rich Roll? When you're working hard and for the right reasons, you put yourself in a position for those synchronicities to occur and also to be aware of them when they're occurring.
51:27 Tom Holland? Yeah.
51:28 Rich Roll? I think so. It is both. It's both of those things.
51:30 Tom Holland? Do you think you've like manifested anything?
51:33 Rich Roll? Yes and no. Like I've worked very hard.
51:36 Tom Holland? Yeah.
51:36 Rich Roll? But also I'm very aware that I'm not in control, that there are, there are other forces at play. Uh, and that I think helps with ego and humility.
51:46 Tom Holland? A hundred percent.
51:47 Rich Roll? Important.
51:48 Tom Holland? And that's one of the things.
51:49 Rich Roll? If you start to think like, oh, I made this whole thing happen, you're on a
51:52 Tom Holland? That's a tricky.
51:53 Rich Roll? Crash course with disaster.
51:54 Tom Holland? That's a downhill slope for sure.
51:56 Rich Roll? Yeah.
51:57 Tom Holland? I think that's the thing with film as well. One of the reasons why it's important to treat everyone with respect on set is because
52:04 Tom Holland? without them on side, the movie's not going to work. You know? And I think that it's an interesting process when you make films, because when you wrap on the last day, more often than not, as an actor, you're not allowed in the edit. You don't get to comment on cuts. You know, you might do a bit of ADR where you get to see parts of the film. And then you see it at the premiere. And I think that it's important to make sure you treat people with respect, because then they'll treat you with the same respect. And hopefully as a result of that, the film will be the best picture it can be.
52:39 Tom Holland? And I think that, you know, you have to put a lot of trust into other people and trust is built upon respect, I think.
52:46 Rich Roll? When you watch any movie, but particularly these MCU movies, the credit scroll at the end is endless, right? And you realize like, there's so many people.
52:56 Tom Holland? It's incredible.
52:57 Rich Roll? A vital part in getting that vision realized to the screen. And the idea that you're not even seeing it until the premiere.
53:03 Tom Holland? Yeah.
53:04 Rich Roll? You go to dailies? Like, do you know, are you just, well, even dailies, like, you're just in mocap with green screen. Like, you're not even really, it's, it's hard to even imagine how that performance is gonna get transformed into what you ultimately see in these movies. Cause there's so much CGI and everything else that goes into giving it a sense of verite.
53:25 Tom Holland? Yeah. And one of the unfortunate things about Spider-Man 3 was we shot it in like peak COVID times. So we shot everything in a studio, which meant that I think throughout the entire process of making that film, I might've done three days on location. And you can feel it in the film, I think. Like when we're walking through New York, they sent a crew to New York to shoot the streets with a motion camera, JIB. And then they brought that piece of kit back to Atlanta. And then they would mark on the floor, like, there's an extra here, there's a dog here, there's a sidewalk here. And then I would have to try and map out what I was gonna do in a pre-existing shot.
54:07 Rich Roll? Yeah, that's bizarre.
54:08 Tom Holland? One of, like, this is such a weird thing. And this can make me sound really difficult, but I didn't, I got, I got over it and we figured it out. But like, the camera was moving way slower than Peter Parker would usually walk. Peter Parker's very bubbly, very quick. Everything is about getting from A to B as quickly as possible without thinking. And this shot that they had was like this really kind of slow meandering camera angle through New York. And Peter is supposed to be like in a rush to get to Doctor Strange to ask him this question. And I found it really difficult to like portray, I'm stressed and in a rush, but walking really slowly.
54:51 Tom Holland? And I actually think that shot isn't in the film because I don't think it worked.
54:55 Rich Roll? Couldn't they just speed up the background footage?
54:58 Tom Holland? But then people would be like walking like this.
55:00 Rich Roll? Oh, I see. All the, yeah, I got you. I got you.
55:01 Tom Holland? I wish it was that simple.
55:03 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:03 Tom Holland? But yeah, there's a lot of trust involved when you're making a movie like that.
55:07 Rich Roll? Right.
55:15 Rich Roll? Can we talk about your sobriety?
55:18 Tom Holland? Please, yeah.
55:18 Rich Roll? Yeah. So in, what was it, January of 2022, you decided to put the booze in the rear view?
55:27 Tom Holland? I didn't decide to put the booze in the rear view to begin with.
55:32 Tom Holland? I just decided to do Dry January. And in doing Dry January,
55:39 Tom Holland? it really scared me because I had a really tough time.
55:44 Tom Holland? I couldn't quite wrap my head around how much I was struggling without booze in that first month. And it really scared me. So I decided as a sort of punishment to myself that I would do February as well as January and I would do two months. The second month was no easier. If anything, like it got a little bit harder. So then again, I was starting to kind of panic thinking, damn, like, I have a bit of an alcohol thing. I'd had a, you know, quite an upsetting conversation with a doctor about my liver a year earlier. And as a young kid, I ignored the doctor as we all do. And I started to think like, oh, wow, maybe I have a bit of an issue here. So then I started to go, I'll do March.
56:29 Tom Holland? And I got through March and started to feel a little bit better, but was still really struggling. So I said to myself, if I can make it to June 1st, which is my birthday, and I can do six months without booze, I will have then proved to myself that I don't have a problem. I'm just young and enjoying a drink. And then by the time I'd done six months sober, I really started feeling the benefits. I started sleeping better. I was handling stressful situations better. My relationship was better. My relationship with my family was better. My relationship with my work was better. And I just sort of said to myself, let's do a year. Let's get through the first year.
57:10 Tom Holland? And then that would be a wonderful achievement. And then by the time I'd crossed that annual mark. I was done. I was like, I'm never gonna drink again, because this is the best version of myself.
57:21 Rich Roll? What was your relationship with alcohol prior to that decision?
57:26 Tom Holland? It was a complicated one, because it was my go-to to celebrate and my go-to to commiserate. And as an actor,
57:36 Tom Holland? working at this kind of juncture, there's a lot of that. The movie comes out, it does really well. The TV show comes out and it absolutely dies on its ass. And then you go for a job interview that you don't get and you're constantly like this, which means that you always have a reason to be drinking. Or I felt like I always had a reason to be drinking. I was never a bad drunk or anything like that. I just, when I started, I just couldn't stop.
58:02 Rich Roll? Right.
58:03 Tom Holland? I wasn't the type of person that could nip to the pub for a pint. Like if I was going to the pub, I was, I was going to the pub to close it.
58:09 Rich Roll? You're closing it down.
58:09 Tom Holland? Yeah, I wanted to lock the door behind me.
58:11 Rich Roll? But not so bad that the cops aren't getting involved and you're blacking out and waking up in weird places.
58:16 Tom Holland? No, no, no, no. And that's why I've been so blessed to have the people around me. That I've had my brothers, my girlfriend, my family. They never allowed that to happen.
58:24 Rich Roll? Hmm. But left your own devices, maybe?
58:28 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I polished off a minibar one too many times.
58:31 Rich Roll? Yeah. So you were like 26?
58:34 Tom Holland? Hmm. It's interesting, actually. Kevin Feige told me a story
58:39 Tom Holland? about when I did my first screen test with Downey, the night before I polished off the minibar. And Marvel found out about that.
58:49 Rich Roll? Hmm. They know all.
58:51 Tom Holland? Yeah.
58:51 Rich Roll? The eye of Sauron.
58:52 Tom Holland? Cause I, I told Kevin, did I tell Kevin or did he tell me? But whenever it came up in conversation, he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know about that. We asked the hotel. I was like, oh shit. Still got the job though.
59:04 Rich Roll? Have you ever talked to Downey about?
59:06 Tom Holland? Yeah, a lot.
59:07 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
59:08 Tom Holland? He's been a real ally for me.
59:09 Rich Roll? He is all in.
59:11 Tom Holland? Yeah.
59:11 Rich Roll? Like he works his program so hard and makes sure that it's always his number one priority.
59:17 Tom Holland? Yeah. He's very generous with it. He's really helpful. And Amy Pascal's been really helpful. I had quite a nasty thing happen to me this weekend where I went to a restaurant and ordered a non-alcoholic gin and tonic. And it was alcoholic.
59:31 Rich Roll? Ooh.
59:32 Tom Holland? And I took a gulp. And kind of put it down and was like, wow, that's really good. That really is a great replacement. Asked the waiter to come over to ask what non-alcoholic gin is that? Because it's the best I've ever had and bless him, he'd made a mistake. And it really upset me. Like, I was really quite beaten up by it. I sort of sat at the table and it was, um, a real storm cloud came over my head. But I spoke to Amy, I called her up and sort of was like, this just happened and I'm a little stressed out about it. And she kind of tempered my nerves, which was nice.
1:00:05 Rich Roll? So you, you make this decision, you kind of weather this discomfort over a series of months. But you did this on your own, like you didn't go to AA. You sort of course corrected, you had this sense about yourself, like this is headed in the wrong direction.
1:00:21 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:00:21 Rich Roll? Left unchecked, this is going to go to a dark place. And what's interesting is all of the discomfort that persisted for month after month. Like, there's a difference between abstinence and emotional sobriety, right? Like, as I often say, you know, the, the drugs and the alcohol aren't the problem, they're the solution.
1:00:42 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:00:42 Rich Roll? Right? Like, they're your best friend because they're allowing you to divert all those uncomfortable feelings that you experience in various situations. And then when you remove it, you're like a live wire with all these emotions. And it's confusing because you've never really had to confront them because every time they come up, you just take a drink and they go away, right? So what is your relationship with that discomfort? Like, how did you quell it? Or, you know, what is your way of like working through whatever that is so that you could be in this place of feeling like, I'm good, I'm me, I can go anywhere and I don't have that compulsion?
1:01:17 Tom Holland? It definitely took a while, um, to get to a place to feel comfortable going into bars and pubs and stuff like that. I think the realization for me was that I'm a very confident person.
1:01:33 Tom Holland? But I'm more confident when I'm pretending to be someone else because the ramifications of your actions aren't real because you're pretending. So I would get really uncomfortable and not confident in social scenarios out in public. When you're just being you. When I've just been myself. And I think that's why I really latched on to drinking because it masked that insecurity with stupidity, I guess, a little bit. That's why like I've always had a really hard time with like campaigns. Like I did a Prada campaign, which I loved. And I loved working with them. They were great. But I had a really hard time seeing me on a billboard sell something because it was
1:02:17 Tom Holland? me, Tom Holland, not as a character. So I think that's kind of why I latched on to it so much. And through perseverance and kind of gritted teeth and FOMO of not wanting to miss out, I would force myself to go to bars and go to pubs and enjoy the beer garden for the football. And when I realized that alcohol wasn't masking my insecurity or bringing out my best self, it was actually doing the opposite. I then started to feel this freedom of like, oh, I can just be myself and I have nothing to be insecure about. That's when it started to get easier and I started to really feel the benefit of not
1:02:59 Tom Holland? being kind of tied to this drink. I used to remember going to parties in LA when I, because at the beginning, you know, as a young kid, you try to fit into the LA world. And now that I've grown up a little bit and I know that it isn't my place to be, I don't try as hard to like go out to the LA parties and mix with celebrities that I don't know. But I used to go to these parties and be like, I can't speak to someone until I'm drunk. Like I've got to get this going. And now that I've kicked that and I've found replacements that make me feel like I'm a part of the process without sacrificing my morning, my afternoon, my next few days, has been so liberating.
1:03:40 Rich Roll? Well, the real gilded opportunity in all of this is that it pulls the covers off all of those emotional wounds or weaknesses or fears or insecurities and puts you in a position where you have to look at them.
1:03:54 Tom Holland? You gotta deal with it.
1:03:55 Rich Roll? And so here is your opportunity. Like, why is it that like, I'm in movies and I go to a party and I feel insecure when I have to be myself? Like, what's beneath that? Like, what's driving that? Like, why would I feel that way?
1:04:06 Tom Holland? Sure.
1:04:07 Rich Roll? And I think, like, running towards that is the path of healing. Like, you know, going beneath the surface, like, what led me to feel this way? And how can I kind of untie those knots so that I could go anywhere and just feel good in my, in my own skin? And I think, you know, sobriety is tricky. Like, if somebody just has an occasionally problematic relationship with alcohol, maybe there isn't some deep-seated dysfunction that really needs to be dealt with. But if you truly have a problem, to me, in my experience and kind of being in this world for a very long time, like, there's always something to look out there. And you're presented with this choice. You can either, like, grip the edge of the table and, like, white knuckle it.
1:04:48 Tom Holland? Mm-hmm.
1:04:49 Rich Roll? But that's not a great strategy. At some point, you're gonna crack, right? Instead, you have to release and, like, be, again, to what we were talking about earlier, like, in this place of acceptance and surrender that is so much harder than anything you've ever had to do where you're using yourself well. It's like a releasing of yourself well. But that's the real gift, right? If you have the courage to, like, run towards that. And so I guess I'm just curious, like, do you, did that prompt you to do some therapy or to really look at that stuff? Or how have you kind of confronted yourself in, in those, you know, deeper ways?
1:05:27 Tom Holland? I'm really lucky that I've got people around me that I'm very comfortable speaking openly with. They're by no means, like, professionals and able to unpack things in the way that a pro would be able to.
1:05:41 Tom Holland? But I've just been very open with my family, with my friends, you know, my friends all drink. And, you know, we've had so many conversations about why I'm giving up, or how it's going, or they've decided to take a little break and they're asking me for help on, you know, what's the best way to do this? Facing those demons is just again, something I sort of did by myself. The idea of like, sort of pulling my socks up and being like, your mates are going to the pub? You're not gonna not go?
1:06:13 Tom Holland? Because you wanna hang out with your friends, you've been away for six months, you haven't seen them. So you kind of just gotta grit your teeth and bear it. And the more I kind of did that, the more I could kind of let go and relax. And then the more I let go and relax, the more I started to feel the benefits of being free and having a life enriched and, and enjoying the freedom from alcohol. So no, I didn't ever really seek professional help. I just had great family and friends.
1:06:42 Rich Roll? Yeah, good for you.
1:06:44 Tom Holland? Thank you.
1:06:44 Rich Roll? I feel like culture is shifting. There is, there is such a groundswell embrace of the alcohol-free lifestyle. Like, it's not like it was when I was a young person. There's all these cool movements. Are you familiar with like One Year No Beer?
1:06:59 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:06:59 Rich Roll? In the UK, like, those guys are friends of mine. Like, I know those guys. And, and it's just cool to see people who, who don't necessarily have a drinking problem, but are like, do I need this? And they go on this journey and realize like their life is so much better. To a point, they're sleeping better, et cetera. But their life just expands. There's this idea, like, if you stop drinking, like, your life is gonna get really boring and small. And it's actually quite the opposite. And I feel like your generation and Gen Z really get this. Like, my, uh, my boys are your age. They're musicians. Trapper had a birthday and they were out like at a bar in Echo Park the other night and they came back and like, they were like, yeah, no one was drinking. They're having like mocktails.
1:07:42 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:07:42 Rich Roll? Everybody could drive home. Like, that just blows my mind. Like, I can't imagine being 28 years old and like going to a bar and, and not everybody just getting absolutely smashed.
1:07:52 Tom Holland? Sure. It's an amazing thing that it's changing and.
1:07:56 Tom Holland? I think it's great that, you know, people shouldn't feel pressured to to get wasted and and drink for any other reason than being social. I love it. I, and you know, with these non-alk beers now. I love the idea of like my mates come over on a Tuesday night. They've all got work at five in the morning tomorrow. We can share a few beers, but there's no consequence to it. There's no attachment to it the next day. You get to be rid of it and free and you get to live this life and rich. You don't have to sacrifice anything because I think that's what you're right. People think a life of sobriety is sacrificing the fun, but it really isn't. You just have to be bold enough to like, take that step to try it.
1:08:41 Tom Holland? And once you get across the line, you're like, wow.
1:08:43 Rich Roll? The social dynamics are the trickiest because people future trip, right? Well, how am I going to go to this wedding? How am I going to, you know, next year? How am I going to go to this, you know, like I can't imagine. So, so I'll drink today, you know, uh, because that just seems impossible. And a lot of people are in social environments where there is that pressure. It sounds like your friends are not those guys, like they're not the ones saying, come on, one drink. It's, you know, what's the big deal or putting pressure on you. But a lot of people do are in environments like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:09:14 Tom Holland? And I, I hope that can change, you know? I am so blessed. I mean, my mates that I hang out with, that I used to drink with, they're all tradesmen, carpenters, welders, they work on sets, they build the sets and they love a drink.
1:09:30 Rich Roll? You're a carpenter too, right? Didn't you study carpentry?
1:09:32 Tom Holland? Sort of.
1:09:33 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:09:33 Tom Holland? My granddad, bless him, who, who only passed away a few weeks ago, he was a carpenter and he taught me carpentry. So I'm going to, uh, hopefully one day, one of my goals is to have a property where I can have a little workshop onsite and, and keep up that little family tradition of, of carpentry. I wouldn't call myself a carpenter. I have built things in the past.
1:09:56 Rich Roll? You know your way around.
1:09:57 Tom Holland? I could fix a door for you if it came off the hinges. One of my favorite things is if something breaks in Zendaya's house, I take huge pride in fixing it.
1:10:06 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:10:07 Tom Holland? The other day she has this guest room, which was. It wasn't the greatest room, like it needed some love.
1:10:12 Rich Roll? Old school masculinity.
1:10:13 Tom Holland? Yeah, like built her these cupboards and put a new wardrobe up for her and like fitted it in so it looked like it was part of the wall. And I was very proud of myself.
1:10:23 Rich Roll? Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever worked with Harrison Ford?
1:10:26 Tom Holland? I haven't.
1:10:26 Rich Roll? So you could chop it up with Amazon.
1:10:28 Tom Holland? I'd love to chat to him about that. Yeah.
1:10:30 Rich Roll? Yeah, yeah.
1:10:31 Tom Holland? Swapping notes.
1:10:31 Rich Roll? Right.
1:10:32 Tom Holland? But you know, I'd love to, I'd love to take my carpentry to the next level and, and be at a situation where, you know, a friend of mine says, oh, we're looking for some new bedside tables. And I'll say, oh, let me make you some.
1:10:43 Rich Roll? Right. In case this whole acting thing doesn't work out.
1:10:46 Tom Holland? Well, maybe it might be my get out plan. It might be my like sail off into the sunset.
1:10:51 Rich Roll? Or you'd just be the old codger like in, in the garden, like making your, you know.
1:10:55 Tom Holland? Making a bench or something. Yeah. A flower pot.
1:10:58 Rich Roll? Exactly.
1:10:59 Tom Holland? Absolutely.
1:11:00 Rich Roll? Let's talk about, uh, Bureau. So you're so passionate about this alcohol-free lifestyle that you actually decided to jump all in and, and create your own like non-alcoholic beer. So what was the inspiration for that?
1:11:14 Tom Holland? I think as an actor in my position, I'd been approached loads of times by different companies to set up something, whether it could be, you know, an alcohol, a rum, a vodka, a beer, a clothing line, all that sort of stuff. And I'd never come across anything that sparked any sense of passion in me. And it wasn't until I got sober and I was dealing with the struggles of getting through that every day. And I noticed a void where there weren't good enough replacements for people like me who wanted to go to the pub,
1:11:53 Tom Holland? enjoy the social aspects of it, share some golden juice with your friends and then go home. And I thought to myself,
1:12:05 Tom Holland? Wouldn't it be a great thing if I could turn not only my sobriety into a great thing for my lifestyle, but a great thing for my future and a tool for other people who are maybe trying to achieve the same thing that I have. But then also a product for someone like my dad. My dad loves a beer after work or when he gets home, but sometimes he doesn't want to drink, but he just wants to crack something open and drink it. So I just started kind of going around town and asking my agents to help me find people that were setting up these companies. I spoke to Athletic and, you know, I was a big fan of theirs and
1:12:41 Rich Roll? Bill Shoeflat.
1:12:42 Tom Holland? Yeah, was sort of tried to kind of get involved there, but they were doing so well that they didn't need any help, which I totally respect. And then I started speaking to my agents about like, well, what if I set up my own one? And, you know, it's a pretty daunting task, but their WME are so fantastic at putting the right people on the table. So I met with this company called Imaginary, who are an investment venture capital company. And we kind of had this idea of building our own product and it's been one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done. For me, it's felt like a school project of like, do you guys have The Apprentice in America?
1:13:21 Rich Roll? Sure.
1:13:21 Tom Holland? It feels like I'm on The Apprentice.
1:13:23 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:13:23 Tom Holland? But I just have
1:13:24 Rich Roll? Remember the other president who was the head of the
1:13:27 Tom Holland? Oh shit, that's right. He did do it, didn't he? Cause we had Alan Sugar did it in England. Oh yes, that's right. He did do that. Yeah. Yeah. I remember now. But it's been such a joy working with the creative departments, figuring out what we want the company to represent. I think it's really important for me that Bureau isn't ramming sobriety down people's throats. It's for everyone. It's for people that don't drink. It's for people that want to drink less and it's for people that drink a lot. But one night they just, they need to wake up early and be switched on the next day. And I think that it represents this, this void in the market.
1:14:12 Tom Holland? I noticed that, you know, all non-alcoholic beers like Peroni or Heineken Zero or Guinness Zero, they're all blue.
1:14:21 Tom Holland? All of their cans have like a blue connotation. So like Bex is Bex blue, Peroni is Peroni blue. And I think that's really unfair because it's like you're in the bar with a big signpost saying like, I'm drinking a non-alcoholic beer. So my goal was to come up with something that you could drink in a bar that was as appealing, that scratched the itch as much as a real beer, but you didn't have to pay the price for it in the morning. And something that was inclusionary rather than exclusionary. So my hope is, is that Biro can represent the non-alcoholic beer market and that it can be something where people like myself can feel included in a place where I sometimes feel excluded.
1:15:05 Rich Roll? It's great, man. I think it suits you perfectly. It's smart. When you see people like Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney with their spirits companies, I mean, obviously, this is like a smart play for anybody who's in a position like you to explore, but to marry it with a real passion, you know, to be not only, you know, kind of the face of this thing, but also an evangelist of a lifestyle that is about community and connection. I think it's, I think it's great. And I think that this segment, this market is exploding and only going to continue to grow. You know, Bill at Athletic told me his whole story. Like when he started, like he couldn't find anybody to work with. Like
1:15:47 Rich Roll? he had a brewer partner and they just couldn't even find anybody to do small batches because everybody was like, there's no market for this. And the products that have always existed have been, to your point, kind of like wave the flag, you know, for the problem drinker where you're just kind of announcing.
1:16:04 Tom Holland? It feels like they're just checking a box.
1:16:06 Rich Roll? And it's about like the negative aspects of this rather than kind of pushing the ball forward towards like the positive lifestyle aspects of this. So.
1:16:16 Tom Holland? Well, I think that the language with, with alcohol-free drinks is always about what they're lacking. And what we want to promote is what you're gaining. That's why we're kind of coining this idea of a life enriched. Just because there's less alcohol in it doesn't mean that it's lesser beer. It's brewed the same. It's the same ingredients. It's just ever so slightly different. So for me, it's not about what it doesn't have. It's what about you gain from having it. And I think that that is something I'm really passionate about. I think to what you asked me earlier. Like, what is it about a project that gets me excited in terms of acting? It's like, do I believe in the message? Do I believe in the story? Is it something I'm passionate about?
1:17:01 Tom Holland? If yes, my foot's in the door, I'm ready to do it. And that's exactly what Bureau has presented to me here. An opportunity to tap into something I've never sort of understood before. But I'm really passionate about making a difference and helping people out. I'd love to have had a Bureau in my first year of sobriety. It would have made it a lot easier for me. And I hope that maybe in the future, it can help people afterwards.
1:17:27 Rich Roll? You brought some, you're gonna, you're gonna let me taste some of it?
1:17:29 Tom Holland? We did bring some, we'll reveal it. I just was saying, it's really interesting, like when you're doing press for something, like a film especially, and it's been a secret for so long. When you talk about it for the first time, there is this weird adjustment process of, like, I'm not supposed to talk about this, I've been keeping it a secret for so long. And now the floodgates have opened. And this is the first time I've ever spoken to anyone about this. It's been under lock and key. Like even guys at my golf club are like, what is this thing you keep rushing off to work on? And I haven't told anyone. So I'm really happy today.
1:18:02 Rich Roll? How long have you been working on it?
1:18:04 Tom Holland? I mean, the creative, we've been working on it for about a year. In terms of like, the, the liquid itself, like what it tastes like, the flavors that we want to try and enhance. The branding and the marketing, which is the, the part of the process that I was most involved with. Was probably what, a five month process? Five to six months, seven months? Which was great, it was awesome. But then, the setting it up and hiring the right people, that was about four or five months beforehand. And we've been so lucky. John, our CEO, I met with two guys. And the moment I started speaking to John, I knew that he was the guy that was going to represent what I wanted to try and create the best.
1:18:48 Tom Holland? He was very authentic, he was very honest and kind and thoughtful. But also incredibly driven and successful. So I was, I was really drawn to him. And I think how he's helped me and our team get to where we are is a testament to him as our, as our leader, which is great.
1:19:03 Rich Roll? Yeah, it's cool. So what do we got here? You got a couple for people that are just listening and not watching on video. You got like, we have a Bureau presentation here. We have three different kinds.
1:19:12 Tom Holland? So I've SKUs is a new thing I've learned in my rapid business life. We've got three. We've got, Edge Hill IPA, which is like a hazy IPA, which is my favorite. Edge Hill is the hill in which my school is on top of. So that's kind of where I grew up. The green is the Kingston Pills. It's like a classic take on a Pilsner. Kingston is where I grew up. So that kind of represents home. And then the cream is the wheat, the noon wheat, named after my little dog, which is one of our favorites. And they're great. For me, they really scratch the itch. It's been such a pleasure. Learning about the process of brewing beer, the difference between brewing non-alk beer and,
1:19:53 Tom Holland? you know, your full strength beer. And then also having the ability to, to ask Grant, our brewmaster, I'd love to have a stronger aftertaste of hop with the, with the hazy. And then he'll explain how he'll go about doing that and all that sort of stuff. So being able to build a product that's tailored for my taste that I get to share with everyone has been awesome.
1:20:15 Rich Roll? Which one should I try?
1:20:17 Tom Holland? Well, what do you like? What's your go-to kind of beer?
1:20:19 Rich Roll? I mean, not too heavy. I mean, listen, first of all, I went to treatment in 1998.
1:20:26 Tom Holland? Okay.
1:20:26 Rich Roll? So you were like, what, two years old?
1:20:28 Tom Holland? I would have been two years old. Yeah.
1:20:29 Rich Roll? Okay. So it's been a minute.
1:20:31 Tom Holland? Okay.
1:20:32 Rich Roll? You know what I mean? So it is a weird thing because, because it's been so long and I didn't like, get sober and then kind of drink non-alcoholic beer, then I'm of two minds with it. Like on the one hand, I think it's fantastic. These things exist, but it's also, it's a weird thing because when I taste it, because now they're so good, right? Like, I'm like, am I having a beer? And I'm like, it lights up a part of my brain that freaks me out a little bit.
1:20:58 Tom Holland? One of the things I'm really excited about with Bureau is that we are never going to bring out a full strength beer. So you know, That when you're holding that gold can, you're safe.
1:21:10 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:21:10 Tom Holland? There's no booze in it.
1:21:11 Rich Roll? So which one? The wheat?
1:21:14 Tom Holland? That's a wheat, so that would be like a Heffervison or a Blue Moon.
1:21:17 Rich Roll? Uh huh.
1:21:18 Tom Holland? Then your Pilsner would probably be the lightest of the three.
1:21:20 Rich Roll? Let me try that one.
1:21:21 Tom Holland? That's kind of your standard lager. And then this is the really juicy one.
1:21:25 Rich Roll? Right.
1:21:25 Tom Holland? This is the-
1:21:26 Rich Roll? I'll taste both, but like, and by the way, I should say, this isn't like a, you know, like this isn't like a sponsored thing.
1:21:32 Tom Holland? No, no, no, no.
1:21:33 Rich Roll? There's no, yeah, like there's no, like, I'm just doing this because I believe, I believe in what you're trying to accomplish.
1:21:40 Tom Holland? Thank you.
1:21:40 Rich Roll? And I think the alcohol-free lifestyle is such an important one. And to the extent that there are options and alternatives out there for people, like, I'm supportive of that. And that's where it ends. So, so if people think like, there was money that got exchanged, no, that's not what this is about at all.
1:21:54 Tom Holland? Well, geez.
1:21:55 Rich Roll? So, yeah.
1:21:55 Tom Holland? This is my first time sharing a beer. There you go.
1:21:57 Rich Roll? Right, well, I'm honored that you would come here first.
1:22:03 Rich Roll? Yeah, man, it's, ah, it's so wild. There's like such a vivid sense memory, like my brain immediately goes to-
1:22:10 Tom Holland? Takes you back, doesn't it?
1:22:11 Rich Roll? Some party that I was at, like, you know, like when I was, you know, 25 or whatever.
1:22:16 Tom Holland? Sure.
1:22:17 Rich Roll? It's a trip. I mean, it tastes really good, but it is, it is like, it is, it is a little freaky if I'm being totally honest.
1:22:22 Tom Holland? Yeah, no, no, no.
1:22:23 Rich Roll? Cause it's so close.
1:22:24 Tom Holland? And again, like, back to what I was saying is now that we are getting so close and it's really difficult to discern the difference. It's so important to me that this kind of color-coded thing for our company becomes the gold standard of what non-alcohol is. So that you know, there's no sense of doubt.
1:22:44 Rich Roll? My brain is like, when is it gonna, when am I gonna feel it? Like, I can feel my brain going, okay, just give it a minute, you'll start to feel it.
1:22:51 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:22:51 Rich Roll? Oh my god.
1:22:52 Tom Holland? But it's not coming. Don't worry. You could drink as many of those as you like and drive home. That's the hazy. This is my favorite. The IPAs were my go-to.
1:23:03 Tom Holland? It's really juicy.
1:23:07 Rich Roll? Oh, yeah, I like that one. Yeah, it's nice.
1:23:11 Rich Roll? I'm also reminded of several months ago, I had the guy who founded Upside Foods in here, who is pioneering cellular meat. So he's growing.
1:23:23 Tom Holland? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:23:24 Rich Roll? Growing like chicken in these like brewing. Yeah, I mean, it's it is a brewing process almost. And he brought his chicken products. I haven't eaten meat in a very long time. And tasting that was also like a weird.
1:23:35 Tom Holland? That was wild.
1:23:36 Rich Roll? That's but it is real chicken, just without the sentient animal.
1:23:41 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.
1:23:42 Rich Roll? It's wild.
1:23:43 Tom Holland? It's really interesting.
1:23:44 Rich Roll? It's a crazy future.
1:23:45 Tom Holland? I haven't tried it. I'd be very interested to try it, though.
1:23:48 Rich Roll? I mean, it tasted exactly like it. And he would say that it's actually a healthier because they can toggle down the saturated fat, or you know, they can kind of make it a little bit healthier. And it's not infused with antibiotics.
1:24:05 Tom Holland? Hormones and stuff.
1:24:06 Rich Roll? Hormones and all the like, it didn't grow up in, you know, some disgusting situation.
1:24:11 Tom Holland? Eating shit and stuff.
1:24:12 Rich Roll? And then also, it has the texture and the flavor of what a chicken would have if it wasn't so domesticated, you know, like more like.
1:24:23 Tom Holland? Oh, wow, that's interesting.
1:24:24 Rich Roll? Before humans started to, you know, kind of screw with the genome and the living conditions.
1:24:31 Tom Holland? And what I know this might sound like a stupid question.
1:24:33 Rich Roll? People have a huge thing. They have like, there's a huge resistance to it. Like, there's a huge ick factor. Like, this is unnatural. And I get that. But when you consider how many billions of these animals are slaughtered and the conditions in which they're raised, like, it begs the question of what is natural?
1:24:51 Tom Holland? Yeah. And also, like, look at bananas, like, bananas aren't supposed to look like they do. But they've been.
1:24:56 Rich Roll? Right.
1:24:57 Tom Holland? Genetically.
1:24:57 Rich Roll? De natured and such.
1:24:59 Tom Holland? Modified to look that way and stay riper for longer and all that sort of stuff. So even the things that we think are natural are not natural.
1:25:06 Rich Roll? They grow the cells on like a lattice work, I guess.
1:25:09 Tom Holland? Wow, that is crazy.
1:25:10 Rich Roll? I don't know exactly how they do it. There's a lot that goes into creating the right texture, etc. But, you know, they're basically like muscle cells that they're literally growing.
1:25:20 Tom Holland? So they would just grow a chicken breast?
1:25:22 Rich Roll? Basically, yeah.
1:25:23 Tom Holland? How does it work with like growing a chicken leg?
1:25:27 Rich Roll? I don't know.
1:25:28 Tom Holland? Do they grow the bone in there or?
1:25:30 Rich Roll? I don't know. I don't know. But I mean, they're working on, you know, they have beef and chicken. They can basically do whatever, you know, and then you're like, well, could you like grow human meat? Like, are people gonna be cannibals? It's like weird.
1:25:43 Tom Holland? But I guess like, that's like one step in the direction for like regenerative medicine. Of, you know, amputees, maybe in a hundred years down the line.
1:25:52 Rich Roll? The future of, of what's possible. Yeah, I went to some conference and there were some scientists and doctors who were pioneering like growing heart tissue and lung tissue. Yeah, it's like we're entering a crazy new world.
1:26:07 Tom Holland? Yeah, I think skin grafts and stuff like that will change. And we work with a charity called Deborah in the UK and their American equivalent is called EBRP. It's a charity that helps kids with EB, which is a disease called epidermolysis bullosa. And it's essentially like, to my understanding, we have nine layers of skin that all move over each other. That's why our skin is so flexible. But to someone with EB, their skin is fused together. So they don't have that luxury. So if they were to quickly close their hands, their skin would crack. And it's gnarly. They bleed and they're blistered all over their bodies.
1:26:48 Tom Holland? They have terrible, uh, health complications down the line and their life expectancy is very short. The benefit to EB though, is that there's only one degenerative gene. Whereas with cancer, there's hundreds of thousands of genes that can go wrong. So EB is at the forefront of gene therapy. So when all these people are trying to use gene therapy to kind of change the world, EB is the one that they're trying to solve because they know what the defective gene is. And they've now got these topical treatments and, and all sorts of different things that are working, that are like making a difference. And there's no cure for it yet. But they are on the precipice of, of curing it. And when they cure it and they unlock that technology, that will change the world.
1:27:32 Rich Roll? That's cool.
1:27:33 Tom Holland? Yeah, it'll be crazy.
1:27:35 Rich Roll? And philanthropy is a big piece of your life too, right? You have a trust and you have your tentacles in lots of different areas with that.
1:27:44 Tom Holland? So for me, what I love about the Brothers Trust, which is really the thing I'm most proud of, is the ability to be boots on the ground and see the difference that is made by helping these different people and raising awareness for certain things like EB. No one knows about it.
1:28:01 Rich Roll? Yeah, I've never heard of it.
1:28:02 Tom Holland? No one's ever heard about it. So I love being able to bring attention to things like that and all that sort of stuff. And I love being able to see the difference that we make as a trust. And we've traveled to see the different charities and I love it. I really find it to be something I'm super passionate about. And my mom, God bless her, she's an absolute saint. She runs the whole thing.
1:28:24 Rich Roll? This is like a family enterprise, right?
1:28:26 Tom Holland? Yeah, so my brothers and I are kind of like the face of the operation. And then my mom is the engine and she runs it. And it's a full-time job for her. And she's great. We couldn't do it without her.
1:28:40 Rich Roll? I'm curious about your relationship with your own potential for transformation, because you've put alcohol in the rearview, this thing that was problematic, that was challenging and difficult for you to let go of, right? Those experiences are transformative in and of themselves, because they give you this sense of possibility and potential when you unleash something latent like that, right? What's currently challenging you or tripping you up now that maybe you need to look at or address?
1:29:13 Tom Holland? I think the biggest thing that I'm facing right now, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most first world problem that anyone has ever experienced, is the power of choice. And it comes down to Spider-Man. When I signed my contract for Spider-Man 1, I signed a six-picture deal. I was 18 years old. I was more excited than I'd ever been about anything ever. And for the last 10 years, I have been at the beck and call of Marvel and Sony. And proudly so, it's been the best experience of my life. I'm now at
1:29:53 Tom Holland? a juncture where I can say no. And now that I've been afforded that power, I am struggling to figure out what is the right thing to do.
1:30:08 Tom Holland? It's meant I've had to put my foot down in certain instances, which I haven't been allowed to do in the past. And I think the learning curve that I'm on right now is dealing with that new sense of power, making sure that I don't abuse it, but making sure that I do the best thing for me, rather than for the studio. And really, the best thing for the character. I don't want to make another movie for the sake of making it.
1:30:36 Rich Roll? The studio wants you to make another Spider-Man.
1:30:40 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, they do. And I want to make another one. I want to make many more, but I want to do it for the right reasons. And now, like I said to you earlier, sometimes I miss the day when getting the job was the win. I am navigating and figuring out what having that kind of power means and that responsibility. And I'm figuring it out. And I'm speaking to people and asking questions. And, you know, I've been speaking to Downey a lot, especially about him making his return, which is super exciting.
1:31:11 Rich Roll? He's gone on that exploration and he still came back to do more.
1:31:15 Tom Holland? That was a tough secret to sit on, because I have a reputation for ruining things.
1:31:21 Rich Roll? You're a little loose-lipped around MCU secrets.
1:31:25 Tom Holland? Yeah. I guess in terms of challenges or things that I'm dealing with, that would be it. And I'm by no means complaining. It's a wonderful place to be. But it is something that keeps me up at night. And I'm constantly thinking of like, is this the right thing to do? Am I going to do justice to the character? Am I going to do justice to the fans? I definitely don't want to just make a movie for the sake of it, because that's not what Spider-Man represents. So yeah, it's a complicated one.
1:31:54 Rich Roll? That is. That is complicated.
1:31:56 Tom Holland? It's going really well, though.
1:31:58 Rich Roll? Yeah, it is. This is what we call a high-quality problem.
1:32:00 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:32:00 Rich Roll? You know, it's like, cry me a river, right? But it's a problem nonetheless.
1:32:04 Tom Holland? I'm not asking for any sympathy.
1:32:05 Rich Roll? It's a huge decision that has, you know, kind of downstream implications for a lot of people, right? And also, interesting to me, because I've heard you talk about being sort of an unrepentant people-pleaser, right?
1:32:16 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:32:16 Rich Roll? And so, it's confronting you with your innate people-pleasing tendencies.
1:32:20 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:32:21 Rich Roll? To try to make a decision outside of that, that is not only in your best interest, but in the best interest of the franchise? And, you know, what is in service to this, to this character that's much larger than you?
1:32:34 Tom Holland? Exactly.
1:32:34 Rich Roll? And what you want to do.
1:32:35 Tom Holland? And the fans as well, like.
1:32:37 Rich Roll? Yeah.
1:32:37 Tom Holland? I owe everything to the fans of Marvel and myself. They've been so kind and generous to me. Like, after Civil War came out, I felt like Civil War was my audition to the world. Like, I'd gotten the part of Spider-Man. I did the film with the Russo brothers, and that came out. And that, to me, felt like my, will you embrace me as Spider-Man? And they did. And I'm so grateful that they did. And I feel like I owe it to them to give and deliver the best version of what the next chapter for Spider-Man looks like. And I think that's really important. And I think the creative integrity for something like that is really important.
1:33:17 Tom Holland? And the studio is on board and supportive and really collaborative. And I've been so blown away by how welcoming they've been into that creative room. But, you know, we're working now. The pedal is to the metal. We're trying to get it going as soon as possible. Things are looking great, but there's still a lot of moving pieces that need to come together for us to hit the ground running.
1:33:43 Rich Roll? Right, so, so what is the ticking clock on this decision? And what are the variables? Is it the script, the team, the story? Like, how are you going to make this decision? What are the factors that come into play? That's going to sway you one way or the other?
1:33:56 Tom Holland? I'm not really sure about how much I can talk about in terms of what are some of the challenges we face creatively and logistically?
1:34:04 Rich Roll? No one's listening, you know, come on.
1:34:06 Tom Holland? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously, one of the things to like bear in mind with Marvel is that there is, your film is a small cog in a large machine. And that machine has got to keep running. And you need to make sure that you can fit into that timeline at the right time to benefit the bigger picture.
1:34:25 Rich Roll? Infinite number of machines across the multiverse.
1:34:28 Tom Holland? Yes, exactly. So, you know, that's one of the challenges we're facing and the time in which we need to get that done is a tall order, but definitely achievable. With the fantastic people we have working on it now. But my biggest thing is the creative. We have a creative and a pitch. And a draft, which is excellent. It needs work. But the writers are doing a great job. And I read it
1:34:58 Tom Holland? three weeks ago. And it really like lit a fire in me. Zanara and I sat down and read it together. And we at times were like bouncing around the living room like this is a real movie worthy of like the fans respect. But there's a few things we need to figure out before we can, we can get that really going. But it's exciting and I'm really, really excited about it.
1:35:21 Rich Roll? You straddled that, that question well and avoided all the political pitfalls.
1:35:25 Tom Holland? Every bit of media training.
1:35:27 Rich Roll? Said what you needed to say. Yes. Well done.
1:35:30 Tom Holland? Thank you.
1:35:30 Rich Roll? Well done. It's not for me to say whether you disclose something you shouldn't have, but you know, it was, it was handled beautifully.
1:35:39 Tom Holland? Yeah, if this had alcohol in it, I'd be in trouble.
1:35:41 Rich Roll? Yeah, I'm like, am I drunk? No, I'm not drunk.
1:35:43 Tom Holland? No, I'm having a good time.
1:35:45 Rich Roll? Well, why don't we close this out with just a few reflections or thoughts for somebody who's flirting with, you know, the alcohol free lifestyle. Maybe alcohol is a problem, maybe it's not, but they've been inspired by what you had to share about like how much better your life is and, and they're looking to take the first step. Like where does that person begin? How should they navigate it? What can they expect? And, and maybe some tools that might be helpful?
1:36:11 Tom Holland? Well, I think for me, try a life of less. And, you know, I think what we have here with Bureau is a beer that does both, you know, it scratches the itch of wanting to have that drink. But you don't have to sacrifice the next day. I think that it's a beautiful journey. One that I've made friends for life on, people that I've related to and and built relationships with that.
1:36:36 Tom Holland? I didn't have before, but then through sobriety, we've become really close friends. And I just think there's no harm in giving it a go. Because my lawyer is sober and he's someone that has been really helpful for me, especially in times where I've been at a bar like, oh, I want to have a drink. And he gave me a piece of advice once, which was really helpful. Which was, you'll never wake up the next day and say, God, I wish I had a drink last night. Never.
1:37:04 Tom Holland? And that for me has been really helpful. And I hope that Bureau can fill that void for people. I'm really proud to be here today and I'm really proud to have a product that I can stand 10 toes down and represent. And believe in the message and I know that there's more to this product than making money. Like, I really want to make a difference in this space and I really want people to have something that helps them feel included.
1:37:31 Rich Roll? Very cool. So if people want to learn more about Bureau and pick some up, how do they do that?
1:37:36 Tom Holland? So October 16th, Bureau Brewing.com, you can get it nationwide. And then first of January next year, just in time for Dry January, we should be in stores nationwide at some major retailers. Hopefully it will grow and grow and grow and the community will grow with it.
1:37:52 Rich Roll? It's a mission.
1:37:53 Tom Holland? Yeah.
1:37:54 Rich Roll? No, it's a mission. Um, and it's, and it's needed, you know, there's a lot of, a lot of people out there suffering unnecessarily. Unaware that a better experience of life is freely available.
1:38:05 Tom Holland? And that's, that's the beautiful thing. It's not even freely available. It's like cheaper.
1:38:09 Rich Roll? Yeah, that's right. Right?
1:38:11 Tom Holland? It's not even free. It's like you're essentially pay you to do it.
1:38:14 Rich Roll? Yeah. And if you're hung up about what your friends are going to say, everyone's self-obsessed. They're not thinking about you anyway. And you could put one of these bureaus in your hand and, and no one will know that, no one will be the wiser and everything is going to be fine.
1:38:26 Tom Holland? Exactly.
1:38:27 Rich Roll? There you go.
1:38:27 Tom Holland? And I feel like with something like this in your hand, like no one's going to be questioning whether that's got booze in it or not. Cause it's a beer.
1:38:33 Rich Roll? It looks like a beer can.
1:38:35 Tom Holland? It doesn't have less than, it's brewed the same. It's a beer.
1:38:37 Rich Roll? It's not blue either.
1:38:39 Tom Holland? And it's not blue. When we were working with the colors. Cause I like the idea that the different colors are easy to remember. Something I don't like about Craft Brewery. Is when you go to the bar and they're like, which one do you want? And you're like, well, I don't know the names of them. There's like seven different hazy these and hazy that. I like the idea of like, I like an IPA. Give me the red one. I like a pilsner. Give me the green one.
1:39:01 Rich Roll? There you go.
1:39:01 Tom Holland? Simple.
1:39:02 Rich Roll? All right, man. Well, I love what you're doing.
1:39:05 Tom Holland? Thank you.
1:39:05 Rich Roll? I appreciate you coming here and sharing your message. And you're a solid young man.
1:39:10 Tom Holland? Thanks very much. I appreciate it.
1:39:11 Rich Roll? I'm a fan and consider me at your service.
1:39:14 Tom Holland? I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
1:39:16 Rich Roll? Peace.
1:39:17 Tom Holland? Fantastic.
1:39:28 Rich Roll? That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as The Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors
1:40:11 Rich Roll? who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com/sponsors. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, The Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis.
1:40:54 Rich Roll? And thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.
1:41:09 Tom Holland? だまして あ
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