He won’t hold a spider, is ‘a bit of a loser’ in his love life, and can be trusted to put out the odd spoiler. And that disarming charm just adds to Tom Holland, who is back as the web-spinning wonder in Spider-Man: Far From Home . He chats about spiders, love, charity, and why it was important to change the storyline from the original films.
Anshul Chaturvedi (BOMBAY TIMES; June 19, 2019)

Think Harry Potter + spider. Think LOTR + spider. Think any of the dozen horror movies with names such as Arachnophobia, Infestation, Tarantula, Eight-legged Freaks, The Mist — all of them with not-so-friendly neighbourhood spiders. What comes to mind? Many words, of which, however, cool is certainly not one.

How, then, does a spider sustain this cool-ness over decades and what does Spider-Man Tom Holland make of it? Don’t most people around him actually find spiders, well… “…scary? Yeah! Well, I mean, he can stick to walls, he can climb walls. And I guess the way his fingers climb, is quite spider-like. And… he has a thing called ‘spider-sense’, which is basically him being able to pre-empt when something dangerous is gonna happen, which lots of spiders actually do have. But I think it’s quite cool that we’ve made spiders a positive thing — because I don’t like spiders! I’m terrified of spiders, man! We were doing some press the other day and they had a big tarantula there, and they asked me if I would hold it for a picture and I said, naaah!”

For a moment, one ponders whether asking Spider-Man about how active he is on the web will be too cheesy, and as better sense prevails, one lets it be. After all, Tom is still just 22; is the youngest actor to play this role, being cast at just 19. Apart from being aware of the “huge responsibility” to the superhero’s fans, he’s also just a youngster who is still excited to put on the Spider-Man costume. On which, here’s the next question: As an actor, which transition is more challenging for him — from the teenager to the superhero, or vice versa?

When he put on or takes off the costume in moments, with one change, he expands, becomes a larger persona; in the other one, he abruptly hits a kill switch and is an awkward kid again, in seconds.

Tom takes a moment to respond to this one. “I’m a hyper-energetic person anyway, so I don’t find the transition that difficult. Sometimes I do find the attention quite scary and quite overwhelming. But… when I put the suit on, something comes over me... like this childlike attitude, this feeling of happiness, and I guess that is kind of emulated in the film. I guess the transition, the one from Peter to the superhero, is just basically me being excited to be in a Spider-Man costume.”

As Tom is bombarded with queries by the global press at the promotions for Spider-Man: Far From Home, he displays Spider-Man-like dexterity, always light on his feet and quick to leap when necessary. The press recurrently asks him if he thinks he is a role model, to which he says, “When I grew up watching the Spider-Man movies, I really looked up to Andrew (Garfield) and Tobey (Maguire, who have played Spider-Man before). So for me now, I’m aware that there are probably little kids around the world who’re looking up to me. So I have a huge responsibility to be a good role model. And I really try my best to do that, with my charity work that I do with my family, just the way I hold myself in public, and the way I treat other people — I really try and set a good example for people, and it’s an important part of the job — because I’m playing a superhero, so I should try my best off screen to try to be a positive light for young people. I love playing this role, and if I never escape this role and I play Peter Parker till I’m 80, I’d love to do that. Not that that will happen. But I recognise how lucky I am.” Along the way, he lets drop that his brother’s charity work extends to India and that he’d love to visit Mumbai when he can.

He is then asked about how he feels about stepping away from the traditional story. He likes it, clearly. “I think it’s really important. There’s a fantastic picture of myself and the cast on a boat in Venice, and it’s the most diverse group of people you’ve ever seen, ever. I think we’re representing our generation, and our generation now is incredibly diverse and inclusive, and that’s such an important thing. Jon Watts (director) was really the first person to get that message across. The fact that we changed Mary Jane and Ned Leeds and Flash Thompson, I think is a really huge step forward in our industry, and I hope we can continue to do so in however many Spider-Man movies we make. Because I think it’s a really great positive thing for young people to see.”

Everyone wants to know about Peter and Mary Jane. He explains at length, patiently. “The relationship between Peter Parker and Mary Jane is very much that of high-school students, it’s not your big Hollywood romance, it’s not your typical romantic relationship. It’s very kidlike, he’s really nervous around her and she’s really nervous around him. They don’t know what to say, they try and hold hands but they’re too scared to. It’s very much like my love life, really. I’m a bit of a loser when it comes to that. But it was really sweet to try and bring that to life because everyone goes through that at some point, everyone at some point has a crush.”

And there’s more of teen pains than just the crush. “It used to be that superheroes fly and throw in some punches and it was all over. Now with characters like Peter Parker, he is only human, he’s only a boy who happens to have these crazy superpowers, and he doesn’t always know what to do with them. And in this film he wants to take a break from Spider-Man, after Avengers: Endgame he’s so tired, and he needs to take a break. But what he realises is that the responsibility of being Spider-Man is not something you can put down. So he slowly realises that his life is now going to be Spider-Man.”

He pauses occasionally, double-checking what he’s saying, wickedly pausing in a self-deprecating acknowledgment of having gained quite a reputation for giving away spoilers. “I don’t think I’ve done any spoilers on this tour yet, I’ve been really careful.”

And then explains where the branding comes from. It’s a fun anecdote. “What Kevin Feige (producer) likes to do when a film is released is, he rents a party bus, and we get all the producers and the directors and some of the actors and we drive around LA and go to different theatres and surprise the fans. I was given a microphone — this is at the time of Infinity War, and obviously at the end of Infinity War I die — and the writer said, this audience has just finished the movie. So I went in and said, ‘Don’t worry everyone, I’m still alive’. And everyone kind of looked at me blankly, and I thought, why is no one laughing? And I looked across and Kevin and Joe Russo (co-director) were like, shut up! And I was like, why? It’s fine, guys, I’m not actually dead! And, well, they hadn’t seen the movie yet and I spoiled the whole movie for a thousand people.”

That’s all right, Tom. You’ve made other movies so much fun for thousands more; safe to guess that thousand won’t hold it against you for long.

Joe Russo and Anthony Russo. Pic/Getty Images

As the first 22 movies come to a close with Avengers: Endgame, Joe Russo talks about the end, his association with the Marvel Universe, protecting the plot, the action and his favourite superhero
Letty Mariam Abraham (MID-DAY; April 7, 2019)

"You have eight minutes with Joe Russo," said the publicist who handled the Avengers: Endgame director's Mumbai visit. As an ardent viewer of the superhero franchise this was panic mode, considering all the things I wanted to know. As the trailer of the film hasn't revealed much, one can't stop wondering — will all the Avengers come back to life, why has Captain Marvel stayed away from the fight this long, will any more Avengers die, what outcome did Dr Strange see in the 14,000,605 possible endings of which the Avengers emerge victorious in just one? — But he wouldn't answer any of these questions as the Russo Brothers are extremely secretive.

As fan theories around the franchise emerge every day, Joe Russo says that his brother Anthony (co-director) and he are obsessed about keeping things secret. "We work very hard to keep the secrets. My brother and I are obsessive about it. We protect the scripts; so, none of the actors have actually read the real scripts of the film. People only read the scenes they are in. The trailers and promotional materials are heavily guarded. They only go through my brother, me, and Kevin Feige [producer] at Marvel," he says and reasons it out as the need to give audience the film experience he enjoyed as a child. "I grew up in an era where we did not have the internet, and so, secrets were never spoilt. That's what I am used to and I want to provide that same experience to the audience."

The Russo Brothers directed four Marvel movies in six years — Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and now Avengers: Endgame — and each one has been bigger than the last, especially, the end. The Winter Soldier featured a massive fight between Chris Evans (Captain America) and Sebastian Stan (Winter Soldier); The Civil War had a faceoff between Iron Man and Captain America, and in Infinity War, the Avengers united tried to face Thanos in the ultimate battle, or so we thought. Joe explains that action requires a lot of discipline. "It's a disciplined and meticulous process to create an action sequence. It requires imagination, to dream up really inventive and interesting set pieces. The most important part of it is to define character and storytelling through the action. The human brain can only take about 30 seconds of unmotivated action before it starts to shut down. To keep the audience engaged, you have to keep shifting, so that it illuminates a character, or storytelling points."

However, with over 20 characters in a three-hour film, one wonders how the director-duo manage screen time for every actor. And he casually explains that the final work comes after months of story iterations. "My brother, me, Christopher Markus, who has written all the Marvel movies, sit in a room for months on end, with cards on the wall of every character, and we just try iteration after iteration to unlock the right story that we all want to tell. It requires a lot of hard work and focus."

For fans who already know, and for those who are still discovering the franchise, it's not news that the makers deviate a lot from the original comic books. According to The Infinity Gauntlet comic book, Thanos destroys half the universe to prove his love for Lady Death, the physical manifestation of death in the universe, who is also seen in Infinity. In the film, Thanos tries to bring balance to the universe with his own twisted logic. Joe defends the changed plotline in his film because he wants to give "motivation for the villains".

He says, "Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the same as the Marvel Comic Book Universe. We have to make choices that are very different from the books. We try to find motivations, especially in our villains, that modern audience can relate to. And we wanted to find something that had to do with the preservation of resources. Even in the warped point of view that Thanos has about destroying half the life in the universe to preserve the other half, it shows his motivation. We thought it was an interesting concept because obviously, we are standing at the precipitous of our [bleak] future with issues like global warming, and depletion of natural resources." While this is the end of the Avenger series, it's definitely not the end of the Russo Brothers' association with Marvel. "We are going to go on a vacation for a bit. We have done four of these movies in six years, so I think [we need a break]. We will be back at some point," concludes Joe.