Tom Holland is officially putting a pause on acting. The Spider-Man actor announced he's taking a one-year break from work following the completion of his upcoming Apple TV+ series The Crowded Room, which premieres Friday, June 9.
In a new interview with Extra TV promoting The Crowded Room, Tom Holland admitted that filming the show was "a tough time" because of the grueling nature of his character's story. (ICYMI: Holland plays Danny Sullivan, a character loosely inspired by Billy Milligan, who, as Apple noted, was the first person ever acquitted of a crime citing his dissociative identity disorder.)
On top of the emotional challenges, Holland also shared that being involved as a producer on the series meant he was dealing with an "extra level of pressure." The combination of the two resulted in a breaking point for the British actor. "I'm no stranger to hard work," he said. "I've lived by the idea that hard work is good work. Then again, the show did break me. There did come a time when I needed a break and disappeared and went to Mexico for a week and had time on a beach and laid low."
As "a result of how difficult this show was," Holland took the executive decision to take a year off. Though he did not clarify if he meant acting, producing, or both, it's likely the latter.
If you've been following Holland for a while, you'd know this isn't the first time he's mentioned this much-needed break. In February 2022, Holland already admitted he was planning to take some time off. "I can confidently say that after I finish that TV show, I will be taking a break," the star said at the time, referring to The Crowded Room, which was then still unannounced.
A few months earlier, in December 2021, he had also referenced a sizable break in an interview with People. "I've spent the last six years being so focused on my career. I want to take a break and focus on starting a family and figuring out what I want to do outside of this world," he said at the time.
Over the last year, Holland has been more outspoken than ever before about his personal preferences and mental health. Last summer, he announced he was taking a break from social media, admitting he finds it "overwhelming" oftentimes. "I get caught up, and I spiral when I read things about me online. Ultimately it's very detrimental [to] my mental state," he said then. He has since returned to social media to celebrate his 27th birthday. (Much like his partner Zendaya, Holland is using social media rather sparingly to commemorate momentous occasions or promote his upcoming projects, like The Crowded Room.)
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he also revealed he was newly sober, Holland attributed much of his openness around mental health to his work on The Crowded Room. "Learning about mental health and the power of it, and speaking to psychiatrists about Danny's struggles, has been something that has been so informative to my own life," he said. "I'm no stranger to the physical aspects of the job… but the mental aspect, it really beat me up, and it took a long time for me to recover afterward, to sort of get back to reality."
In the past, Zendaya has opened up about relying on Holland for support to help her "pull out" from Euphoria's more emotionally taxing storylines, so we sure hope the feeling is mutual — and we have a tingling sensation that that's the case. In related news, Holland and Zendaya are officially set to reunite on-screen in a fourth Spider-Man movie, which will likely begin filming after Holland's break and the current WGA strike.
