An Inside Look at His Fitness, Sobriety, and Purpose

I am studying Holland for signs of unusual rizz, a.k.a. charisma. “Tom is the ultimate rizz master,” Timothée Chalamet recently said in an interview for LADbible TV. “The Internet knows this. Zendaya knows this. Everyone knows this.” It’s true that the Internet erupts with commentary whenever Holland steps out, particularly if he steps out with Zendaya, the megastar he has been dating for a few years. But I’m having trouble articulating the magnetism. “It’s kind of, like, an intangible thing,” says Spider-Man director Jon Watts. “You look at him and you just love him.”

To be clear, I see that the 28-year-old actor has the obvious prerequisites for rizz: He is charming and intelligent and confident. I have also seen his 2017 Lip Sync Battle performance, in which, to Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” he dances energetically in a corset and tight leather shorts and ends with a front flip, landing on his back on a flooded stage. I understand that he, like Spider-Man’s alter ego, Peter Parker, has hidden capabilities that are perhaps infinite. But sequestered in the corner of the hotel lounge, he gives me the impression not of suavity but of intense sincerity.

Perhaps that’s because he’s not here to promote a film. In fact, he is emerging from a yearlong break from acting. “It was just something I needed to do,” he explains. “I had been acting flat out since I was 11.” That was when he auditioned for Billy Elliot: The Musical in London. A few years after Billy Elliot, he was cast in The Impossible, opposite Naomi Watts, and then as Spider-Man in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. He’s since played Spider-Man in two Avengers films and in three stand-alone Spider-Man movies, with a fourth on the way, all the while taking on white-knuckle films like Cherry—in which his character is walloped first by love, then by combat, addiction, and bank robbery—and The Crowded Room, a psychological thriller in which he plays a young man at the center of a disturbing crime. In addition to the fourth Spider-Man film, he’ll join Matt Damon and Zendaya in a Christopher Nolan movie slated for 2026.

His sabbatical was a page break before a new chapter, one in which he is better positioned to both continue his rapid ascent in Hollywood and enjoy the life it has bought him. He fills his house in London with friends and family. He does carpentry, and he golfs habitually and very well (his handicap is 2.9): He and his two brothers recently played in a tournament with English professional golfer Tommy Fleetwood and won. “It was the best day of my life. I called my lady and was like, ‘Listen, I’m thinking of turning pro,’” he jokes. He and Zendaya share a dog, Noon, and recently got another, a Doberman named Daphne. “She’s so cute, man, it’s actually a joke,” he says, holding up his phone to show a photo of a guilty-looking puppy. “This is her in trouble because she just pooed in my house.” (The rizz overfloweth.) Holland doesn’t have the schmoozy charisma we’ve come to expect from our superheroes. What he has is much harder to fake.

HOLLAND’S SINCERITY PERSISTS even when he’s discussing his new line of nonalcoholic beers, Bero, which he is currently promoting; after we meet, he’ll head to an event where he’ll pitch the beers to scores of bartenders. At this point, in the celebrity arms race for products, a trend for which Danny DeVito does not receive enough credit (before Casamigos, there was DeVito’s Premium Limoncello), we have all witnessed actors suddenly turning robotic when discussing their new brands, but Holland becomes more animated when he talks about Bero.