“I was like four or five auditions in, and I think I was auditioning for John Boyega’s role,” Holland said. “I remember doing this scene with this lady, bless her, and she was just a drone. So I was doing all of this, like, ‘We gotta get back to the ship!’ And she was going, ‘Bleep, bloop bloop, bleep bloop.’ I just couldn’t stop laughing. I found it so funny. And I felt really bad, because she was trying really hard to be a convincing android or drone or whatever they’re called. Yeah, I obviously didn’t get the part. That wasn’t my best moment.”
Fortunately for Holland, he had a much easier time imagining being bit by a radioactive spider than he did playing along with an imaginary “Star Wars” droid. Not landing “Star Wars” opened the door to “Spider-Man,” and now Holland finds himself at the center of other potential franchise starters such as “Chaos Walking” (opening March 5 from Lionsgate) and video game adaptation “Uncharted” (set for February 11, 2022 from Sony Pictures). Holland is also getting his first awards season leading vehicle courtesy of Apple-backed “Cherry,” directed by his MCU filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo. Given Holland’s skyrocketing career, the actor has gotten much better at mastering the art of the audition. In his early days, he used the following “little cheat” to draw more attention from casting directors: “I would get something really wrong in the first take in the room, so that the casting director would be like, ‘You should try and do it a little bit more like this.’ And then I would do it how I’d actually planned on doing it, and it would show them that I was really good at taking direction. That’s a little trick that I used to do, just to kind of show people that I was malleable and able to work with others.” Head over to Backstage’s website to read more from Holland. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
