Another one bites the dust. Even as Netflix cruelly cancels fan-favorite originals or leaves other stranded in permanent purgatory, one of the streamer’s most popular series is coming to an end in the form of teen comedy-drama Sex Education, with the British show concluding as of its fourth season. Sex Ed has helped launch the careers of many of its cast, including Barbie and Doctor Who stars Emma Mackey and Ncuti Gatwa, as well as providing the most recognizable adult role for former child star Asa Butterfield.
Already known for his performances in such films as 2011’s Hugo and 2013’s Ender’s Game, Butterfield is now known internationally as adolescent sex therapist Otis Milburn, a role he’s played since Sex Education debuted in 2019. However, his career could’ve have gone in an entirely different direction if he had been chosen by Marvel Studios to become the face of the next generation of the MCU and was cast as one of the most iconic superheroes in comic book-dom.
Sex Education‘s Asa Butterfield was neck-and-neck with Tom Holland to play Marvel’s Spider-Man
With the gift of hindsight, Tom Holland seems like such a perfect choice for the MCU’s iteration of the amazing wall-crawler that it’s hard to imagine Marvel didn’t just offer the job to him automatically. But given that the part of Peter Parker is one of the most coveted in all of Hollywood, naturally Marvel and Sony embarked on an epic quest to make sure they found the right man for the role. Eventually, the casting search became a two-horse race when the candidates were narrowed down to just Holland and Asa Butterfield.
Butterfield gave the auditions his all, but ultimately Captain America: Civil War directors the Russo brothers, Marvel president Kevin Feige, and Sony’s Amy Pascal elected to go with Holland and the rest is movie history. Several years after his near-miss with superhero stardom, Butterfield finally opened up about how he felt on losing out on Spider-Man during an interview with Collider in July 2020.
The actor — now 26 — sees the upside of the whole experience, as the knowledge that his career has enjoyed other highs since helps him deal with the “tough” situation:
“Every so often there’s a part [that you really want] and it’s a script you love, and you kind of put your heart and soul into it, and you don’t get it,” Butterfield explained. “And it is tough and it is sh*t, but I often find that something even better comes out of it at the end. And so in the case of Spider-Man, I did Sex Ed, because I wouldn’t have been able to do both of those at the same time.”
Butterfield has also taken something of a zen approach to the whole thing, remarking that he’s made peace with the fact that he understands he was simply not “the right person” for the job as his interpretation of the character was ultimately not what Marvel was looking for. He continued:
“I think as an actor and going out for roles, there’s only so much you can do and everyone’s gonna have a different take on a part and look at a character in different ways, have a different sort of performance, and you kind of have to stick with what you think. And if that isn’t necessary in line with what the director and the producers want, then it’s like, there’s nothing you can do about that. You might just not be the right person, and that’s out of your hands. And that’s something I’ve learned, something that I think is great to help me kind of get over it.”
What’s more, there’s certainly no hard feelings between Butterfield and Holland, as the former praised the latter for the “amazing things” he’s done with the role over his six appearances as the webslinger to date, feeling that events happened the way they did for a reason:
“Tom did amazing things with Peter and he had an entirely different portrayal of him and I think it’s worked so well in the universe and in that part, and I don’t think I could do it. So I think all things work out in the end.”
Now that Sex Education is over, of course, Butterfield has some time on his hands to try again for another superhero role. A cameo in the next Spider-Verse film as a Peter Parker variant from somewhere in the multiverse could be a hilarious and brilliantly meta place to start.
