Holland practiced ballet for two years to land the part, “just doing pliés and tendus and relevés. There, age nine, he was spotted at a dance class by a West End choreographer, who suggested he audition for the Billy Elliot musical. Holland grew up in Kingston Upon Thames, an upmarket town just south of London. To understand how Holland became a multiple-tentpole-movie-carrying action hero, it’s simplest to start with ballet. What’s more, No Way Home will finally collide Marvel’s increasingly byzantine cinematic universe with Sony’s own equally convoluted Spider-Verse (currently comprising Tom Hardy’s Venom movies, plus the forthcoming Morbius and Kraven the Hunter), thereby planting the seed from which years of sequels and limited series and sundry other subscription-generating content will surely bloom. “Tom is stepping into the role that Robert Downey once occupied for Marvel, which is the favorite character, and in a lot of ways the soul of the Marvel universe,” says Joe Russo, who, alongside his brother Anthony, has directed Holland in four movies, including Avengers: Endgame. For several movies, Marvel has been establishing Holland as the new center of Marvel’s world. The stakes for No Way Home are even higher. “But for me it is, ‘Can I do it without the Lycra?’ ” “This is that moment of, like, ‘Can Tom Holland stand up on his own and be a leading man?’ I know that makes me sound like a dick for saying that,” says Holland. In December he’ll star in Spider-Man: No Way Home, a film that Holland himself has called “the most ambitious stand-alone superhero movie ever made.” Then there is February’s Uncharted, a slick, *Indiana Jones–*y adaptation of the best-selling PlayStation franchise. The next few months promise to be hectic even by Holland’s standards. The outside world has a way of forcing itself back in. “ ‘Dad, how do I put the washing machine on?’ ” Last night a skylight broke in bad weather, flooding his kitchen. “I find myself ringing my dad for stuff that I should definitely know how to do,” he says.

So he’s enjoying some state-enforced time to himself. “Since I got cast as Spider-Man, I haven’t really taken a break,” Holland says.

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