The episode opens with Amy Poehler delivering a sponsor read for All Free Clear Detergent, emphasizing its 100% dye- and perfume-free formula. She then previews the episode — two movies, a movie star, and a friend who knows him — before cutting to a second sponsor read for Palmolive Ultra, the show's presenting sponsor, and its 99.9% grease-removal claim. It's a brisk, functional opening that sets the warm, personable tone of the show before any guests arrive.

Before Tom Holland himself appears, Amy pulls in Jacob Batalon via video call for a warm-up segment that instantly reveals the depth of the two actors' real friendship. Jacob, a Hawaiian-American actor now engaged and about to turn 30, gushes about Tom with infectious sincerity — noting they were barely old enough to drink when they first screen-tested together in 2016 and that he has never once felt Tom would 'talk dirty behind his back.' The conversation drifts delightfully off-topic: Jacob's freshly groomed Pokémon-named dog Vulpix, the merits of heating pads, and the Rolex Tom gifted him — which Jacob has worn to the recording as a tribute to his friend. ^{[1] — Jacob Batalon "Jacob Batalon got a Rolex from Tom Holland: Tom Holland bought Jacob Batalon a Rolex, which Jacob wore to the podcast recording — calling T…" 11:08 Play} Amy marvels that none of her own friends have ever bought her a Rolex. Jacob closes by asking Amy to put 'The Boiling Rock, Part One' to Tom — a piece of inside lore so opaque that Tom will later insist the conversation stay off-mic.

A clean, upbeat sponsor read for Subaru's hybrid lineup: the Crosstrek Hybrid promises up to 597 miles per tank and the Forester Hybrid up to 581, with a call to action pointing listeners to Subaru.com/hybrid. The read includes the standard disclaimer about EPA estimates and actual mileage variation.

With Tom Holland finally on the other end of the mic, Amy dispenses with her usual rule against excessive flattery — declaring Tom 'probably the biggest movie star we've had on Good Hang' and comparing him to Tom Cruise. Tom receives the praise with gracious, slightly embarrassed British charm before Amy announces 'compliments done' and pivots immediately to ribbing him about being 5'6". Tom's response — 'You're short as fuck, thank you, Amy' — sets the tone for a candid, funny, genuinely warm conversation that will run for the rest of the episode.

Tom paints a vivid picture of a childhood built on stories, laughter, and brotherly chaos. His father, a stand-up who only worked after the kids were asleep, instilled a culture of contribution — good was never a good enough answer at the dinner table. No friend Tom brought home was safe from being 'rinsed' by his dad warming up for an evening show. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "The tough thing about having a comedian as a parent is that no one that you bring to the house is safe. Any of my mates that come over when…" 17:15 Play} Four brothers across a wide age range meant the house was perpetually in motion; it was only after all the boys moved out that Tom realized his parents — not the kids — were the messy ones. His brother Harry worked as his assistant for years and now co-runs a production company with him; youngest brother Paddy, the painter and slight introvert, worked in Spider-Man 4's art department. Amy and Tom bond over the shared experience of oldest-child responsibility.

Amy draws Tom into a rich conversation about his relationship with movement and performance. Tom explains that all four Holland brothers were enrolled in a Saturday dance school called Nifty Feet, and that his parents never missed a show. The real turning point comes in a story Tom tells about being caught 'marking' a routine — going through the motions without effort — and the car ride home afterward where his father said, in essence: you must always give your best, even when you're not feeling it. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland's comedian father caught him 'marking' a dance routine — going through the motions without trying — and told him in the car tha…" 22:35 Play} It's a deceptively simple piece of fatherly wisdom that Tom says he returns to constantly as an adult. Amy echoes it from her own career: the instinct to appear ambivalent when nervous is a trap that separates good from great. Tom crystallizes the lesson: failing while trying beats failing without trying, because at least then you have no regrets.

Amy steers the conversation to Janet Jackson, and Tom's answer is unexpectedly, genuinely emotional. He's never met Janet but credits her as one of five people who are foundational to his career success. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Janet Jackson is one of five people Tom Holland credits as integral to his entire career. Her music gave him rhythm as a kid, his mom enrol…" 24:40 Play} The logic is airtight: if he hadn't shown natural rhythm as a kid, his mom would never have enrolled him in dance; without dance, no Billy Elliot audition; without Billy Elliot, no agent; without an agent, no Spider-Man. Amy draws a parallel to Billie Eilish's similar origin story — an injury in dance competition that redirected her toward music. Both conversations land on the same idea: dancing is spiritual, primal, and the gateway to creativity.

The dancing thread leads naturally into Tom's most exciting upcoming project: a Fred Astaire biopic directed by Paul King. Tom describes arriving at Pineapple Dance Studios — the London studio where he trained as a child — terrified, tap shoes on for the first time in 15 years. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland hadn't worn tap shoes in 15 years when he walked into Pineapple Dance Studios for his first Fred Astaire biopic rehearsal. He p…" 26:30 Play} He made a high-stakes call: he Googled the Billy Elliot music and played it in front of the director. What followed was a moment of pure muscle memory — the choreography surfaced on its own, the lights and audience of his childhood flooded back. He's quick to note that the standard would horrify his original Billy Elliot choreographers, but the spark was undeniably still there. Any lingering question about whether to take the role dissolved in that room. Tom says his biggest professional regret is quitting dance when Billy Elliot ended, and this film is his chance to reclaim it.

Amy digs into what it was actually like to be a teenager doing eight shows a week on the West End. Tom's answer is surprisingly nuanced: there were four Billys sharing the role, rotating nights and acting as standbys for each other. He recalls one evening when he was playing golf with his dad, got an emergency call, arrived at the theater to cover, and wound up having to go on when the replacement Billy also injured himself. An audience member famously wrote in to suggest the theater just use one kid to avoid confusion. But Tom doesn't call Billy Elliot the hardest job he's ever done — that title goes to The Odyssey. Amy and Tom also discuss the oddity of always preparing for the hardest part of your day to come at the end of it.

Amy delivers four sequential sponsor reads: CarMax (sell your car with a real online offer, free 7-day comparison window, at-home pickup), Sephora (personalized beauty advisors, Kayali fragrances, Haus Labs, Laneige Lip Masks), Allstate (checking first for auto insurance could save hundreds), and The Container Store (systems that reduce chaos). The break is functional and cleanly executed before the conversation resumes at the Spider-Man origin story.

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.' ^{[1] — Amy Poehler "1,500 auditions for Spider-Man: Roughly 1,500 people auditioned for the role of Spider-Man that Tom Holland ultimately won." 38:06 Play} 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.

The conversation moves from plot to philosophy. Tom argues Spider-Man works because the character is always asking 'who am I?' — a question every young person is living. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "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 h…" 41:30 Play} Brand New Day tightens that idea: Peter Parker is suppressing his trauma and trying to be only the hero, not the full person, failing to see that the full person is what makes the hero worth loving. Tom Rothman, the studio head, calls it a 'superhuman movie' rather than a superhero movie. Amy adds her own framework: the film's premise of having to re-learn why you love the people in your life is a deeply adult metaphor about memory and choice. Tom also credits the film's message about phone scrolling and digital isolation as something he's genuinely proud to put into the world for young audiences.

Amy has watched the Umbrella dance 5,000 times. She argues it wasn't just the talent that made it explode — it was Tom showing up fully comfortable with his feminine side, which she calls rare and important for young men watching. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland's Umbrella lip-sync performance went globally viral not just because of the dancing talent but because he showed up completely …" 44:15 Play} Tom's recollection is charmingly practical: the energy in the audience of 19-year-olds deflated almost entirely while he was in the Spider-Man suit, but he felt in his body that the moment of ripping the suit off would go nuclear. He also reveals a small negotiation at the dress rehearsal: a wardrobe person asked if they could shorten his shorts, and he firmly declined — 'I'm doing enough for the cause.' Amy connects the whole performance back to his father's car lesson: if you're going to do it, go all in.

Amy makes a mock-serious case for banning all movie stunts, and Tom responds with a candid update on his own stunt philosophy. As Spider-Man films multiplied, the stunt team — ex-Cirque du Soleil performers, world-champion British gymnasts — became so elite that Tom learned to take his ego out of the room. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Spider-Man stunt team: ex-Cirque du Soleil: Tom Holland's stunt team for Spider-Man includes ex-Cirque du Soleil performers and British wor…" 47:55 Play} He can do a backflip; his stunt double Luke can do a double backflip. The math is obvious. He still loves the adrenaline of a stunt that goes right, describing it as the closest thing acting has to sport. But he's clear: protecting the moneymaker matters, and deference to specialists isn't defeat.

Amy loops the conversation back to Jacob Batalon, and Tom is warm and specific: Jacob's enthusiasm, his soul, the fact that they've been through this whole journey together since the same life-changing day. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "What's been so amazing for the two of us is that our lives changed on the same day together. And we've been through this whole journey toge…" 51:02 Play} Then the story gets funny: Tom texted Jacob while both were in LA, booked an escape room on a whim, and the two self-described leaders promptly proved useless together — too many chiefs, not enough time. A producer from the movie also came along, and they were all equally helpless. Tom closes the Jacob chapter the way Jacob closed his: 'He will be a friend for life.'

The revelation comes almost as a parenthesis — Tom mentions he's heavily dyslexic while explaining how he was excited to play Telemachus — but it opens into one of the episode's most revealing passages. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland has been asked to host SNL multiple times — and always says no. His dyslexia causes him to freeze when reading aloud, making li…" 52:55 Play} Reading aloud creates a specific mental block: he can read fine in private, but doing it out loud, especially under pressure, risks freezing entirely. That's why SNL, which he genuinely loves and has been repeatedly invited to host, remains out of reach for him — the cue cards are the problem. At script read-throughs, he pre-highlights and pre-learns his lines so he's essentially skimming from memory, not reading cold. Amy finds this deeply relatable to how different learning styles produce different kinds of performers, and points out it likely explains his strongly physical, tactile approach to inhabiting characters.

Tom plays Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey — a story about a boy searching for his father while his father (Matt Damon as Odysseus) tries to come home. The shoot was technically formidable: everything filmed on IMAX, with a camera so large it needed a custom sound-dampening 'blimp' to be usable in dialogue scenes. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "On Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, Tom Holland says Matt Damon was the hardest-working person he's ever seen on a film set — and was equal…" 57:20 Play} The film could only run for three minutes before needing a reload. In a nine-minute emotional scene between Damon and Anne Hathaway, Tom watched both actors hold their emotional state silently through multiple pauses while the camera was reloaded — a masterclass in patience, professionalism, and self-belief that left him visibly awed. Nolan himself was 'fun' — warm and encouraging, with a pat on the back after a good take that felt like a stadium roar.

Amy steers into relationship territory carefully, and Tom responds with evident pride and affection. He calls Zendaya 'fearless' as a performer — citing Rue in Euphoria and Emma in Challengers as polar opposites delivered with identical intent and passion — and simply calls her 'the best actor going.' ^{[1] — Tom Holland "I think she's the best actor going. I really think she has, like, something special." 59:32 Play} Beyond craft, he describes having a partner who understands the industry from the inside as a practical emotional lifeline: someone who understands both the comfort of a shoot and the exposure of a press tour, who can big you up or talk you down, who gets it in a 'personal' way that no one outside the industry really can. Amy and Tom briefly acknowledge the projective quality of celebrity fandom before moving on.

One of the episode's richest production stories: Tom and Zendaya were filming a scene in Brand New Day when both felt it wasn't landing. Tom says he would never dream of saying that to an actress he wasn't intimately connected with — but with Zendaya, the trust was complete. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland and Zendaya agreed mid-shoot on Spider-Man: Brand New Day that a scene wasn't working — a conversation Tom says he would never …" 1:01:40 Play} He went to producers, then to director Destin Daniel Cretton with his honest assessment. Destin — described by Tom as unflappable and impossibly calm — listened, agreed, said 'everyone go home,' and sat down with writer Justin to rewrite from scratch. The next day's reshoot, Tom says, produced a scene that now genuinely sings. Amy finds it revelatory; she's been in the position of trying the same thing with a near-stranger and reports it does not go well.

Tom mentions that doing American accents paradoxically feels more freeing — the separation from himself as a British person helps him inhabit a character. But his dialect coach's single most frequent note was the strangest possible one: stop saying 'Spider-Man' in a Deep South accent. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "'Spider-Man' hardest word in American accent: Tom Holland's hardest word in an American accent is ironically 'Spider-Man' — he kept sliding…" 1:03:44 Play} The word that should be most natural to him kept coming out wrong. Amy counters with her own war story: playing government employee Leslie Knope required constant use of the word 'government,' which a Boston-inflected American brain mangles by dropping the R. Tom also observes that American characters, especially New Yorkers, don't add 'please' to food orders — a specifically British habit that his dialect coach had to coach out of him. The pair agree Australians do American accents best, Brits worst, and that British accents are hard partly because there are so many of them.

The conversation turns personal and candid. Tom acknowledges he quit drinking because he 'had a problem' — it was affecting his work, his relationships, and his health. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "Tom Holland quit alcohol because it was harming every part of his life. He calls that first sober year the hardest thing he's ever done. Ou…" 1:06:00 Play} His first year sober was the toughest challenge he's encountered, harder than any physical shoot. During that year he noticed a gap in the market: there was almost nothing for sober people to drink at a bar that felt socially equivalent to a real drink. Biero was born from that gap. The product extension into shandies — beer mixed with lemonade or flavored soft drinks — came from his mother's observation that Zendaya, who has never been a drinker, didn't like the taste of straight beer. So Tom's mom suggested a shandy line to give Zendaya something she could enjoy. Four flavors are coming this summer: grapefruit, lemon lime, blackberry yuzu, and elderflower.

Amy's closing question — what makes Tom laugh? — produces the episode's most philosophical answer. Tom says his favorite night out is a comedy club, and he's unapologetic about it: stand-up is the bravest art form, he argues, because unlike film acting there is no safety net of crew, cue, or second take. ^{[1] — Tom Holland "My favorite night out is to go to the comedy club. I think it is the bravest form of art in our world." 1:09:08 Play} He recalls being taken backstage at The Comedy Store by his father as a boy — seeing comedians in anoraks eating packed lunches before walking out, nailing their set, and heading off to the next venue — and realizing how much of the work in film acting is done for him by a massive support apparatus. His father is his hero: tenacious, positive, never bringing bad gigs home. As for turning 30, Tom is both nostalgic and genuinely excited: he's been 'the young one' on every set his whole career, and he's ready to be a young man rather than a kid.

Amy closes the interview with effusive but earned praise, promising Tom she'll see him at the movies. Her solo Polar Plunge recommendation spotlights TikTok choreographer Charlie Wakey, who created a viral dance trend set to a Michael Jackson Smooth Criminal mashup — an organic extension of the episode's dancing theme. She encourages listeners to follow original choreographers online. The outro rolls full production credits for The Ringer and Paper Kite Productions before a final pharmaceutical ad for Tremfya (guselkumab) for Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.