Tom Holland has revealed that it was Zendaya who ultimately convinced him to say yes the odyssey, with a characteristically direct ultimatum.
speaks to PEOPLE along with Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and director Christopher Nolan to mark the film’s release, Holland described the moment he came home from his first meeting with Nolan and broke the news to his now-wife.
“I sat down with Z and thought, ‘I’ve been offered this movie,'” he said.
“And she said, ‘By whom?’ And I thought, ‘That’s the big one’. And she was like, ‘Chris?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s Chris Nolan’.”
The complication was significant.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day was scheduled to begin production on the same day as The Odyssey.
Zendaya’s verdict on the scheduling conflict was immediate.
“Z said, ‘I’ll leave you if you don’t The Odyssey.'” The line drew laughter from Damon, Hathaway and Nolan. “Yeah. Well, thanks to her,” Nolan said, chuckling. “Here I am,” Holland added.
Sheep The Odyssey to work required Holland to go back to Sony Pictures executive Tom Rothman and ask for Brand new day‘s production was pushed back, a request that was ultimately granted.
Both films now land in the same summer, with The Odyssey in theaters now and Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives on July 31.
Zendaya, who plays Athena in the The Odyssey and appears together with Holland in Spider-Man films like MJ, was also brought to the project through her husband.
Holland revealed in a recent Get access to Hollywood interview that Nolan gave him the opportunity to be the one to tell her she had been cast.
“I said, ‘Just read the script again, but read Athena really carefully.’ And the little corners of the mouth… It was amazing,” Holland recalled.
For Nolan, bringing Holland into his film world was something he had been keen on for some time.
“Tom was someone I hadn’t worked with before, but I’ve admired his work for years and really wanted to work with him,” the director said, acknowledging the logistical challenges involved.
“It wasn’t easy juggling a lot of different things. He’s a very busy young man, but this family came together.”
On how the cast responded to the demands of filming, Nolan added, “I like to say it was a tough shoot, but tough in the right way. They rose to it magnificently.”
