Actors do lots of different things to get ready for roles. They workout and exercise and have been known to put themselves through absolutely grueling experiences. None of them hold a candle to what Tom Holland did to prepare for Spider-Man: Homecoming. Tom Holland may have done the toughest, and the bravest, thing that any actor has ever done to prepare for a role. He went to high school.
The coolest thing I think I did for the movie was I was enrolled in a high school in New York, in the Bronx, as a secret. No one knew who I was or what I was doing. I had a fake name and a fake accent. I went to school for three days, I think. It was really fun. It was really interesting because New York high schools are so different to schools that I went to in London. Where I went to a school where you have to wear a suit and tie and it's all boys, and for me it was the first time that I was in a classroom with girls. It was a really strange experience, it was really fun.
While most of us wouldn't need to go to back to high school in order to properly portray the experience, most of us try to forget it, Tom Holland never had the chance to have the American high school experience. He tells a Facebook Q & A that his was so different that it was actually really great, and quite fun, for him to see what high school is like in America first hand. Of course, knowing that he only had to spend three days there probably helped. You have to wonder, did he even do his homework?
Of course, even only spending three days there, Tom Holland still couldn't avoid drawing attention to himself. Part of the issue is that the school chosen for Holland to attend was a science-focused high school in the Bronx. It was a good choice, as that's exactly the sort of school that Peter Parker will attend in Spider-Man: Homecoming. However, since the school in question generally requires you to enroll there from the start, the fact that a "new student" showed up at all was something that made students talk. Holland says he tried to explain to one girl that he had "a secret" but apparently she just figured he was crazy. He did, apparently, reveal his secret to one student, but that went about as well as you'd expect.
And then I told one person. I told one kid at the school. I was like 'Hey man, listen, I'm actually Spider-Man.' He did not believe me... And at the time I hadn't made the movie, so I didn't have any pictures to show him to prove that I was Spider-Man... No one believed me. Which is actually a good thing, because it makes me think that if Peter Parker went up in his school and was like, 'I'm Spider-Man,' everyone would be like 'Nah dude, no you're not.'
He's not wrong. If somebody at your high school claimed to be Spider-Man, you would surely assume they were nuts. Of course, if Peter Parker claimed to be Spider-Man he'd at least be able to prove it.
