Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Podbit · Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Tom Holland

Explore episode Jun 2, 2026
Society & Culture
Spider-Man's Message for the Digital Age

Tom Holland · Jun 2, 2026 Society & Culture

Tom Holland says his proudest thing about Spider-Man: Brand New Day is its message for young people in the digital age. The film's studio head Tom Rothman calls it a 'superhuman movie' rather than a superhero movie, because its core theme is that constant phone scrolling is destroying the social connections that make us who we are.

Where this was said

1,500 Auditions and the Spider-Man Journey

At 41:30 · chapter starts 38:10

Amy frames the Spider-Man audition as a '10-year lottery win' — 1,500 candidates, one winner — and Tom fills in the emotional texture. He'd watched Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man films and quietly hungered for the role for years before he learned they were auditioning. Once in, he spent six or seven months in the process, so laser-focused on getting the part that the day he found out was less celebratory and more vertigo-inducing: 'Why did I want this? This is a nightmare.' He connects that sensation to shooting Spider-Man: Brand New Day, where the third film's massive success and the Tobey/Andrew cameos made starting fresh feel like a genuine risk — until director Destin Daniel Cretton joined and the whole project clicked into focus.

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