When Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures decided to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Andrew Garfield's time as Peter Parker came to an abrupt end.
Tom Holland was ultimately cast as the wall-crawler after impressing studio executives during a screen test with Robert Downey Jr. Spidey only had a few scenes in Captain America: Civil War, but later appeared in his own trilogy and two Avengers movies.
In a new interview, Holland reflected on his audition alongside Downey and the unique challenges that working with the Iron Man actor presented.
"When I had to take my mark and do my scene with Downey it was really overwhelming," he admitted. "I am very grateful to Downey. When I did my [screen test] it was eight pages of dialogue. It was a long scene. It went great. I was told by my agent to learn the lines exactly. When I did my first take with Downey, he just started improvising everything and changing it all."
"That gave me license to follow him. You can’t beat Downey, but you can ride his coattails. And those are good coattails to ride. I just followed his lead and we improvised. I thought after that I audition that I got it. It went so well."
"When I got to set after I got the gig, my scene had been cut down significantly from what I did in the audition," Holland added. "It was now maybe two pages. Downey piped up: 'Where did all of the kid’s lines go?'"
Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo reportedly explained to Downey that they didn't have room for the full scene given how busy the movie already was - Spider-Man was added relatively last minute, remember - but he continued to push for more.
"Downey was the one who said, 'No, you’re going to want to spend time on this. Let’s shoot the whole thing from the audition. You can always cut it, but you’re going to want to have it,'" Holland recalled. "And they used all of it. I owe that to him. That’s really cool. I’d love to one day do that…If I’m lucky to bring Miles Morales into the MCU I’d love to do for a young kid what Downey did for me."
The night before his screen test, Holland says he "polished off the mini bar," something "Marvel found out about." That didn't affect his chances but he's since given up alcohol and is now sober, launching a non-alcoholic beer brand called Bero.
Downey has long been one of Holland's biggest cheerleaders and the Spider-Man actor recently revealed that he turned to the web-slinger's on-screen mentor for advice about his MCU future.
You can hear more from Holland in the player below.