Tom Holland

Thomas Stanley Holland (born 1 June 1996) is an English actor.

His accolades include a British Academy Film Award and three Saturn Awards.

Thomas Stanley Holland was born on 1 June 1996 in Kingston upon Thames, in south west London, to photographer Nicola (née Frost) and Dominic Holland, a comedian and author.

He has three younger brothers.

His paternal grandmother was from Tipperary, Ireland, and his paternal grandfather was from the Isle of Man.

He lives in Kingston upon Thames, near the house of his parents and younger brothers.

As his parents have creative professions, he is often inspired by them; he considers his father a role model who has unofficially worked as his manager due to his experience in the industry.

Holland was educated at Donhead, an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Wimbledon in south west London.

When he was seven, he was diagnosed with dyslexia.

His parents sent him and his brothers (to avoid making them feel neglected) to a private school so he could get the necessary attention.

Although Holland liked the new school, this started to drain his family's finances.

Holland attended Wimbledon College, a voluntary aided Jesuit comprehensive school, followed by the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon.

Growing up, Holland considered several career choices.

As a child, he was a fan of Janet Jackson's songs, and often danced to them.

His mother signed him up for a dancing class advertised in the private school Holland was visiting at the time.

In his teens, Holland briefly attended carpentry school in Cardiff, Wales.

He also considered becoming a primary school teacher, as he enjoys being around children.

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, he secured a supporting part in 2008 and was upgraded to the title role that year, which he played until 2010.

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.

Later in 2008, Holland and co-star Tanner Pflueger were promoted to the lead role in the musical.

On his first day playing Elliot, Holland developed tonsillitis but performed on stage anyway to positive reviews; he went to the doctor the next day.

Following his stage success, Holland hoped to be popular in school and that his schoolmates would stop bullying him.

After being in a professional environment, however, he matured earlier than his peers and struggled to fit in.

As a result, his General Certificate of Secondary Education grades suffered.

After his work on Billy Elliot the Musical finished in 2010, Holland voiced a role in the British dub of the Japanese animated fantasy film Arrietty (2011), and sent an audition tape to Juan Antonio Bayona for a part in The Impossible (2012).

Holland made his film debut in the disaster drama The Impossible (2012) as a teenage tourist trapped in a tsunami, for which he received critical acclaim and a nomination for the Goya Award for Best New Actor.

After this, Holland 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 miniseries Wolf Hall (2015).

Holland has additionally directed the short film Tweet (2015) and voiced roles in computer-animated features, including Spies in Disguise (2019) and Onward (2020).

Holland achieved international recognition playing 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.

He featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list of 2019.

Some publications have called him one of the most popular actors of his generation.

Holland's career began at age nine when he enrolled in a dancing class, where a choreographer noticed him and arranged for him to audition for a role in Billy Elliot the Musical at London's Victoria Palace Theatre.

The sequels, subtitled Far From Home (2019) and No Way Home (2021), each grossed more than $1billion worldwide, and the latter became the highest-grossing film of the year.

He had 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).