How Zendaya’s playful ultimatum pushed Tom Holland to choose Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey over Spider-Man schedule
Inside the marital banter that steered Tom Holland from Spider-Man to The Odyssey
Dubai: Tom Holland has revealed that wife Zendaya jokingly threatened to "leave" him if he rejected Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, according to an exclusive interview with People magazine.
Speaking to the magazine, Holland recalled returning home after meeting Nolan and sharing the life-changing offer with Zendaya.
"I've been offered this movie," Holland said, adding that he described the filmmaker only as "the big one." Zendaya immediately guessed it was Nolan.
However, there was one major problem. As Holland explained, filming for Spider-Man: Brand New Day had originally been scheduled to begin on the same day production was due to start on The Odyssey.
That's when Zendaya offered some playful but pointed advice.
"Z said, 'I'll leave you if you don't do The Odyssey,'" said Holland, prompting laughter from Nolan and his fellow cast members during the interview. Nolan jokingly replied, "Well, thank you to her."
The scheduling conflict was eventually resolved after Sony Pictures agreed to move production on the next Spider-Man film.
In a separate interview with GQ published in June, Holland revealed he had what he described as a "very uncomfortable conversation" with Sony Pictures executive Tom Rothman to request that Spider-Man: Brand New Day be delayed so he could film Nolan's epic.
Holland also said that he believes Nolan's reputation for completing productions on schedule helped persuade the studio to accommodate the change.
"Any other director, it might have been a slightly different conversation," he said.
According to People, the scheduling adjustment allowed Holland and Zendaya to appear together in both films. Holland stars as Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, while Zendaya portrays the goddess Athena in Nolan's adaptation of the ancient Greek epic.
During the same interview, Nolan praised Holland's work ethic, saying he had admired the actor's performances for years and was eager to collaborate with him despite his demanding schedule.
"It wasn't easy jamming in between a lot of different things. He's a very busy young man," Nolan told People, adding that the cast "rose to it magnificently."
Away from their professional lives, Holland also appeared to confirm in a recent interview with Esquire that he and Zendaya are married. Holland revealed that AI-generated images falsely depicting a lavish wedding in Lake Como briefly convinced his grandmother that she hadn't been invited.
The Odyssey is scheduled to arrive in theatres on July 17, followed by Spider-Man: Brand New Day later this month.
