When twenty year old Tom Holland was cast to take on the role of everybody’s favorite webslinger, he definately looked like an average teenage high school student. The problem, however, that was a Brit, he wasn’t familiar with American high school life. In a recent Q&A for the official Spider-Man page, he told this story about going undercover for some research:
“The coolest thing I think I did for the movie was I was enrolled in a high school in New York, in the Bronx, as a secret. No one knew who I was or what I was doing. I had a fake name and a fake accent. I went to school for three days. It was really fun. It was really interesting because New York high schools are so different to schools that I went to in London. Where I went to a school where you have to wear a suit and tie and it’s all boys, and for me it was the first time that I was in a classroom with girls. It was a really strange experience, it was really fun.”
Holland did say he tried to let one of his fellow classmates in on the secret, but it didn’t go so well:
“I told one person. I told one kid at the school. I was like ‘Hey man, listen, I’m actually Spider-Man.’ He did not believe me… At the time I hadn’t made the movie, so I didn’t have any pictures to show him to prove that I was Spider-Man…. No one believed me. Which is actually a good thing, because it makes me think that if Peter Parker went up in his school and was like ‘I’m Spider-Man,’ everyone would be like ‘Nah dude, no you’re not.’”
Spider-Man: Homecoming, directed by Jon Watts, stars Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr,Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Donald Glover and Tyne Daly, opens July 7, 2017.