Tom Holland revealed it was Zendaya who finally convinced him to say yes to The Odyssey, with a typically direct ultimatum.
Talk to PEOPLE alongside Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and director Christopher Nolan to mark the film’s release, Holland described the moment he came home after his first meeting with Nolan and broke the news to his now-wife.
“I sat down with Z and I was like, ‘I’ve been offered this movie,'” he said.
“And she said to me, ‘By who?’ And I was like, “That’s the biggest one.” And she said to me, “Chris? I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s Chris Nolan.'”
The complication was significant.
Spider-Man: A Whole New Day was 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 made Damon, Hathaway and Nolan laugh. “Yes. Well, thanks to her,” Nolan said with a laugh. “Here I am,” Holland added.
Get The Odyssey to work, Holland had to go back to Tom Rothman, head of Sony Pictures, and ask him Brand new dayProduction was pushed back, a request that was ultimately granted.
The two films are now arriving in the same summer, with The Odyssey in cinemas now and Spider-Man: A Whole New Day arrived July 31.
Zendaya, who plays Athena in The Odyssey and appears alongside Holland in the Spiderman films like MJ, was also brought to the project through her husband.
Holland revealed in a recent Access Hollywood interview that Nolan gave her the opportunity to be the one to tell her she was cast.
“I said, ‘Just reread the script, but read Athena very carefully.’ “And the little corners of his mouth… It was incredible,” Holland recalls.
For Nolan, bringing Holland into his cinematic world was something he had wanted to do for some time.
“Tom was someone I had never worked with before, but I had admired his work for years and really wanted to work with him,” the director said, acknowledging the logistical challenges involved.
“It wasn’t easy being between a lot of different things. He’s a very busy young man, but this family came together.”
About how the actors coped with the demands of filming, Nolan added: “I like to say it was a tough shoot, but tough in a good way. They did it beautifully.”
