Spider-Man: No Way Home’s Tom Holland and Zendaya on fame, anonymity and keeping secrets

Onscreen and real-life couple Zendaya and Tom Holland have something else in common with their Spider-Man counterparts.

There’s a lot that’s been rumoured about Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third instalment of the current sweep of movies featuring the webslinger, but for everything we don’t know for sure, there are things we do.

We know that villains from previous iterations of Spider-Man movies will be featured, including Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin and Jamie Foxx’s Electro, thanks to a tear in the multiverse fabric.

And we also know the film will pick up right after the jawdropping in-universe revelation of Spider-Man’s real identity, Peter Parker.

Being thrust into the spotlight, to have your face plastered on every platform, and being chased by paparazzi is something Spider-Man stars Tom Holland and Zendaya know a little something about.

“But we’re not famous for murdering people though,” Holland tells news.com.au over Zoom. “Everyone thinks Peter Parker is the most wanted person in the world, so our fame is slightly different.”

Zendaya and Tom Holland at the Spider-Man: No Way Home photo call in London. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

No Way Home is Holland and Zendaya’s third film together in the franchise, and their onscreen chemistry brought them closer off-screen too.

Last month, Holland confirmed to GQ the pair were dating, when an earlier photo of them kissing in a car was splashed across the internet.

In another dimension to this story of life imitating art imitating life, at least they’re going through the fame game together.

“We’re lucky, in the same way Peter and MJ have each other, it’s something we’ve gone through together,” Holland says, looking at Zendaya seated next to him. “It’s just nice to have something to relate to your character.

“I already have quite a few things with Peter Parker I can relate to, having that extra layer is even nicer.”

Spider-Man: No Way Home is in cinemas on December 16. Picture: Sony

Where Peter and MJ’s experience is a sudden unmasking – thanks to J.K. Simmons’ character Jonah Jameson revealing Peter’s identity at the end of Far From Home – Holland and Zendaya’s loss of anonymity has been more gradual.

Zendaya has been in the public eye since her teens – her most notable early work was on the Disney Channel, as Rocky Blue in Shake It Up – before transitioning to roles in the Spider-Man franchise, Dune and in Euphoria, a series she also produces.

Now 25, the same age as Holland, she’s spent half her life in the spotlight.

“What’s different from MJ and Peter’s experience is I got to grow with it, it didn’t happen overnight,” Zendaya says. “It was kind of a slow progression, so I got to grow with it and learn to deal with it.

“A slightly healthier way, not that it’s ever a healthy situation but I got to learn how to acclimate to it.

“I have a lot of empathy for when it happens overnight. Becoming Spider-Man, or the young people on Euphoria. It changes your life completely.

“That’s tough, when you don’t know how to deal with being able to walk down the street and now you can’t.”

Holland jumps in to say that it’s particularly tough to be so public in your 20s.

“Early 20s is when you’re supposed to make mistakes, so when your entire 20s belongs to the rest of the world, it’s difficult.”

He sheepishly shares the first time he thought he would be recognised, on the train ride home from London on the opening night of his first movie, The Impossible.

“I was 14 or 15, or maybe I was older than that. The night of the release I remember getting the train home and I wore a hat,” he says, while making the motion of pulling down an invisible visor. “But no one gave a sh*t!”

No Way Home is Tom Holland’s sixth time pulling on the Spider-Man suit.

That’s the kind of anonymity he no longer enjoys, even if it helps him inform the character.

With a cast stacked with actors from across three Spider-Man franchises, No Way Home has inspired feverish speculation. With a story that involves a Doctor Strange spell gone awry, leading to the multiversal visitors, there are numerous possibilities for where it could go.

Rumours have been swirling for eons that if the multiverse has crashed into the MCU and villains such as Green Goblin are here, then surely the other Spideys (Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire) are here too.

Holland developed a reputation for being accidentally loose-lipped on the promo tours of his early Marvel movies – it was even played for laughs in some No Way Home promo sketches – but he’s in full control now.

He knows how to lock it down, even if the extra attention on No Way Home makes it both easier and harder to do so.

“We’re keeping things secret because we really believe in the secret, and we think it will be so impressive for fans to see some of the stuff we have in store for this movie.

“But then we also keep it a secret because that’s our job and that’s what they told us to do!”

There are questions over whether Holland would continue to pull on the Underoos after No Way Home, which was the last film in the initial contract the British actor first signed when he debuted the character in Captain America: Civil War.

Zendaya stars as MJ in Spider-Man: No Way Home. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

In that GQ interview, Holland floated that he didn’t still want to be playing Spider-Man when he was 30 and that the brand would benefit from moving on to someone else’s story, such as Miles Morales, another iteration of Spider-Man in the comics.

Last week, Holland was more coy. He told Associated Press that he wanted to do right by the character and if it was time for him to step down, then he would do so proudly.

But it doesn’t seem like Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal is ready to let him go. She told Fandango that No Way Home would not be the last Spider-Man movie Sony will make with Marvel and that they were getting ready to make another Spidey flick with Holland.

Before that end comes – if it’s sooner rather than later – at least fans will have No Way Home still to look forward to.

For now, Holland and Zendaya will continue to be two of the most famous faces in the world – but not for murdering people.

Spider-Man: No Way Home is in cinemas from Thursday, December 16

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