Tom Holland Says Robert Downey Jr. Saved His MCU Debut After Scene Was “Cut Down Significantly”

Much like their onscreen counterparts, Robert Downey Jr. left quite the impression on Tom Holland.

The Spider-Man actor recently recalled a gesture by MCU co-star that was “so great and so sweet” during his first day of filming Captain America: Civil War (2016) with Downey Jr.

“I’m very grateful to Downey, but… When I did my audition, my audition was like eight pages of dialogue. It was a long scene,” he recounted on the Rich Roll podcast. “Typically, an audition will be two pages.”

But when he got to set for his first day, Holland noted, “My scene had been cut down significantly from what I’d done in the audition, to now, a page and a half or maybe even two pages.

“We start shooting the scene, and Downey piped up and said, ‘Where’s all the kid’s line gone?'” he continued. “And the Russos sort of said, ‘Well look, this is already a 140-page script. 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. 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. So, I owe that to him.”

Holland added, “I think that’s really cool, and I’d love to one day do that. If I’d be lucky enough to somehow bring Miles Morales into my Spider-Man universe and into the MCU, I’d love to do for a young kid what Downey did for me.”

In addition to his appearances in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), Holland went on to lead Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) as the titular web-slinger.

During the podcast, Holland also gave an update on the fourth installment of his Spider-Man franchise. “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 three weeks ago and it really lit a fire in me,” he said.

“Zendaya and I sat down and read it together and we at times were like bouncing around the living room,” added Holland. “Like this is a real movie worthy of the fans’ respect, but there [are] a few things we need to figure out before we can get that really going. But it’s exciting and I’m really, really excited about it.”

Holland says he owes it to MCU fans to “deliver the best version of what the next chapter for Spider-Man looks like,” adding: “We’re working now with the pedal 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.”