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Does whatever a spider can, indeed.

Tom Holland's in the news right now (but really, when isn't he?) promoting his brand of non-alcoholic beer, Bero. But since you're not going to sit down with a Spider-Man without talking about Spider-Man, the actor's recent Men's Health profile turned from slinging drinks to slinging webs, and happened to uncover a very Peter Parker-esque fact about the 28-year-old actor. Apparently, Holland came into his audition for the Marvel role with an actual acrobatics display.

"He entered the scene at one of the auditions by doing a flip!" said director Joe Russo, who of course directed Holland as Marvel's wall-crawler in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers, Endgame. But it was the director of the actual MCU Spider-Man films who had the most to say on the subject.

"He just was so young and sweet," said Watts, "and just charming, and then in the audition, he did a full backflip, like a standing backflip, in addition to being really great on tape [...] It was like watching a video of the real Peter Parker." Watts went on to point to the much-memed video of Holland dancing to Rihanna's Umbrella as a further example of Holland's physicality in performing.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd be pretty nervous to follow after that if I was an up-and-coming actor auditioning for Spider-Man one day. I'm just saying, if part of what got Holland cast was his ability to perform Spider-Man-like moves, logic dictates they're going to be looking for an even more Parkerian actor for the next go-round.

So get working on that light precognition, young hopefuls.

Tom Holland will return as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the MCU's Spider-Man 4, which is slated for July 24, 2026.

(PS - If you're wondering about the image above; that's not Tom's audition. That's him in full Spider-attire at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, no doubt making his heroic persona proud.)

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters