The Most Brutal Scene Tom Holland Filmed For Spider-Man: Homecoming
Tom Holland has had to film a few brutal scenes during his stint as Spider-Man in the MCU ... but one of the most physically challenging ones he ever filmed is from "Spider-Man: Homecoming," his first standalone movie as the web-slinger. In the film's third act, Holland's Spidey encounters Michael Keaton's supervillain, the Vulture, in his lair, just as he is about to escape with a ton of alien technology. The hero tries to stop him from leaving, but the Vulture takes off with his jetpack, cutting through the pillars of the building around them, which causes it to collapse. The mishap leads Spider-Man to be trapped and buried under unending rubble. The hero is at his most vulnerable here — he is injured, cries, and feels defenseless.
Spider-Man lives through a few moments of feeling defeated before we see his resilience return. He slowly lifts himself from the scene despite the crisis getting worse. It's the first time Peter feels like he can't escape from his position, and we see Tom Holland perform the heart-breaking scene with great ease. The actor has had to go through immense training for the role — he's done all kinds of flips — and yet, the single most challenging scene for him to film was this one.
A trapped hero
Tom Holland had big shoes to fill after being cast as Spider-Man. But he effortlessly captured the essence of a high school student struggling to live two different lives, to balance his friendships, schoolwork, and overwhelming responsibilities as a superhero.
Before becoming a major movie star, Holland gushed about "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and how tough it was to film the rubble scene. Marvel Studios wanted to make the scene look as realistic as possible and used actual debris in place of what fans would expect was styrofoam, which probably wouldn't have the same impact on Holland's performance.
"The hardest thing to film in this whole movie was that scene," said Holland in an interview with Uproxx. The actor further explained that lifting himself out of the rubble wasn't the only task at hand — it was just as tricky to get into the set.
"That was the hardest scene ever. Because to get in there, the actual set, was a mission. To get out was even scarier. We shot it three or four different times. Dude, it was so brutal shooting that scene. But that said, it is so awesome."
The actor further revealed that the crew had used natural cement to set up the scene, which, as you can imagine, didn't make things easier for him.
"It was real rubble. It was super heavy. Like, I couldn't lift it myself. It was on wires and they would just slowly lift up. But I couldn't lift it myself. It was too heavy."
While this must have been a complicated filming situation for Holland to physically experience, the actor nailed it. It's cool to see that sometimes superheroes can find themselves in exceedingly tricky situations, and it is not always some technological gadget — but their strength and perseverance that helps them escape such casualties.