Tom Holland has recently lauded Robert Downey Jr. for stepping up for him during his MCU debut.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Rich Roll Podcast, Tom recalled he first time filmed as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War opposite Iron Man star.
“When I had to take my mark and do my scene with Robert, it was really overwhelming… I am very grateful to Downey,” he said.
Tom continued, “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 Robert, he just started improvising everything and changing it all. That gave me license to follow him. You can’t beat Robert, 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,” revealed the Uncharted actor.
Tom told the host, “When I got to set after I got the gig, my scene had been cut down significantly from what I did in the audition. It was now maybe two pages.”
“Robert piped up: ‘Where did all of the kid’s lines go?’” remarked the Cherry actor.
Interestingly, Captain America: Civil War directors Joe and Anthony Russo shared that their script was already “massive” which is why they cut the scenes that Tom auditioned with Robert.
However, Tom mentioned, “Robert 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.’”
“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 Robert did for me,” he added.
