Tom Holland has revealed he is stepping back from acting after making a heartbreaking confession about his health.
The news comes after the star revealed last month that he has been sober for over a year. He opened up about filming his new Apple TV show, The Crowded Room, and how that caused “bit of a meltdown” in his personal life.
Holland’s rise to fame began when he was cast as the web-slinging superhero, Spider-Man, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Prior to this, Holland had made appearances in a few smaller-budget films and theatre productions. However, his portrayal of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War and subsequent solo films, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, catapulted him to global stardom.
However, all this hasn’t come without its difficulties, as the star opened up about in his interview with Entertainment Weekly.
He revealed that filming his new crime thriller series made him wake up, after he started spotting similarities between himself and his character in the show, Danny Sullivan. In the show, Sullivan is arrested in connection with a 1979 shooting, but he is based off the real life crimes of Billy Milligan, who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.
“I was seeing myself in [the character], but in my personal life,” Holland told the outlet.
“I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking, like, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character.’ And, obviously, we were mid-shooting, so I decided not to… It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
He described the show as an insight into the power of the human mind” and “the ways in which we can deal with trauma”.
“Learning about mental health and the power of it, and speaking to psychiatrists about Danny and Billy’s struggles, has been something that has been so informative to my own life,” he continued.
For example, he shared that he is now better at recognising “triggers” such as social media “that stress me out”.
“[I hope Crowded Room viewers] have more respect and more sympathy for people who are going through mental health issues…I hope that people will feel educated about the powers of mental health, the struggles, [and] our incredible abilities to survive.”
However, in his latest interview with Extra TV, Holland revealed more about how he found the difficult role.
“I just was terrified by the idea of playing this character,” he shared.
He continued: “I just really agreed that it was time to tell the story about mental health — mental health that is brought on by trauma. And educate some people into how crazy it can be and how your mind is so powerful — it can work for good, and it can work for bad — and it just really resonated with me.”
Holland further explained that being a producer on the show further added pressure.
“It was a tough time for sure. We were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before, and then on top of that being a producer dealing with the day-to-day kind of problems that come with any film set added that extra level of pressure,” he said.
“There did come a time where I was sort of like, ‘I need to have a break.’ I disappeared. I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach. And I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was,” he confessed.
He shared that he is now taking some time to be a “regular bloke from Kingston and just relax,” explaining that his favoured activities these days include going to the garden centre and playing golf.
