24 year-old Tom Holland might be a little older than the character he portrays in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there’s no denying that the actor has more than a few personality traits in common with Peter Parker, including a youthful exuberance that has famously seen the Spider-Man star banned from reading scripts in advance in the event he accidentally gives away any more spoilers.
Of course, the fact that Tony Stark decided to recruit a high school student to battle against Captain America’s splinter group of Avengers in Civil War was frequently questioned by the other characters, as well as factoring into the plot of Avengers: Infinity War as he referenced both Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Aliens in his battle plans. The MCU’s Spider-Man has been well and truly established as a huge fan of old movies at this point, but it turns out that Holland didn’t exactly feel the same way, and hadn’t even seen the original Star Wars trilogy when he originally boarded the franchise.
However, in a recent interview, Infinity War and Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo revealed that they finally managed to convince him to watch A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi after being shocked by his admission.
“We were stunned. We adore Tom, but I’ll tell you, getting to know Tom, Tom is a young man. He is a very young man… I actually got really excited when he said he hadn’t sen it, because the idea was so novel and so unexpected. I was like, ‘This is fantastic’. Tom is a guy whose sensibilities we really admire and value, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, we get to tap into his sensibilities and they’re unaffected by Star Wars. I think we’ve since busted his chops enough that he’s seen it. I think he’s seen the Star Wars trilogy at this point.”
It would make sense for Tom Holland to finally get around to watching the original Star Wars trilogy given that Peter Parker is such a huge fan of the series, but it still seems strange to think that the character would heavily reference The Empire Strikes Back in his MCU debut while the actor probably had no idea what he was talking about, even with both franchises being a major part of Disney’s portfolio.
