Tom Holland

Thomas Stanley Holland (born 1 June 1996) is an English actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a BAFTA Award and three Saturn Awards. Holland's films as a lead actor have grossed over $9.9 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time. He was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list of 2019.

Holland's career began at the age of nine when he enrolled in a dancing class. A choreographer noticed him and arranged for him to audition for a role in Billy Elliot the Musical at London's Victoria Palace Theatre. After two years of training, he secured a supporting part in 2008. Later that year, he was upgraded to the title role, which he played until 2010. Holland made his film debut in the disaster drama The Impossible (2012) as a teenage tourist trapped in a tsunami; he received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Goya Award for Best New Actor. Holland then decided to pursue acting as a full-time career, appearing in How I Live Now (2013) and playing historical figures in the film In the Heart of the Sea (2015) and the TV miniseries Wolf Hall (2015).

Holland achieved international recognition playing Peter Parker/Spider-Man in six Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) superhero films, beginning with Captain America: Civil War (2016). The following year, Holland received the BAFTA Rising Star Award and became the youngest actor to play a title role in an MCU film in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Its sequels, Far From Home (2019) and No Way Home (2021), each grossed more than $1 billion worldwide; the latter became the highest-grossing film of the year. Holland played another action film role in Uncharted (2022), and also expanded to play against-type roles in the crime dramas The Devil All the Time (2020) and Cherry (2021). Holland has directed the short film Tweet (2015) and voiced roles in animated features, including Spies in Disguise (2019) and Onward (2020).

At age nine, Holland began dancing at a hip hop class at Nifty Feet Dance School in Wimbledon, where he performed with his school group at the 2006 Richmond Dance Festival. There, he was spotted by choreographer Lynne Page, an associate to Peter Darling, choreographer of Billy Elliot the Musical. Page arranged an audition for Holland, where the musical's director Stephen Daldry thought that he "had great potential and was a very natural actor". After two years of training in ballet, tap dancing and acrobatics, Holland won the role of Michael Caffrey, the protagonist's best friend, and made his debut performance at the West End's Victoria Palace Theatre in June 2008. During his time performing in the musical, Holland learned gymnastics. Holland says when his peers at school found out about his dancing activities, they started bullying him.

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