You may have not noticed it, but Tom Holland wasn’t on your movie screen in 2024, and that could become an extended reality in the not-too-distant future. In his recent Men’s Health cover story, the 28-year-old actor revealed his plans for life after acting, including what life change has to happen for him to walk away from the profession.
Acting ever since he auditioned for Billy Elliot: The Musical in London at the age of 11, Holland has spent the vast majority of his life as a web crawler, a schizophrenic, an animated weapons developer, and a world of characters in between. But he has life goals that supersede fighting CGI aliens. “When I have kids, you will not see me in movies anymore,” he says. “Golf and dad. And I will just disappear off the face of the earth.”
He doesn’t give any timeline for when he’ll become a father (who really does?), and he’s already locked in to appear in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey, the next Spider-Man flick, and the fact-based racing drama American Speed, all set to be released in 2026. That could make 2026 as good a time as any for a swan song.
Time has also begun showing its effects on the actor, who Spider-Man director Jon Watts says once did a full standing backflip in his audition for the superhero role that changed his life. Holland says he successfully did the same backflip recently, but this time he pulled every muscle in his stomach and “could not laugh because my stomach was so sore” for weeks. That sort of pain is enough to make anyone rethink their career.
As one of the most important superhero actors of a generation nears the age of 30, it might be a good time to binge your favorite Holland films before there’s no more to go around.
