TOM HOLLAND: Launching A Second Career, Living Alcohol-Free, & Acting With Authenticity | Rich Roll

[Music] I'm a very confident person but I'm more confident when I'm pretending to be someone else because the ramifications of your actions aren't real the Spider-Man of it all that was the big turning point of where like everything changed but it definitely was a steep learning Cur for sure I think it's quite rare for a young Superstar a talent who has been in the public eye before even reaching his teens to be as mature as grounded and self aware as Tom Holland a generation defining actor globally renowned for his turns as Peter Parker and Spider-Man

who's now exploring a different role himself I think we all work too hard and we should put our lives first I've always lived by the idea that I work to live I don't live to work pressure is a privilege to a certain degree but sometimes too much pressure is too much pressure from his West End stage debut at 11 to headlining Mega Blockbuster Fran ches Tom's Journey offers insights into Fame into mental health into creative growth and most importantly into what matters most recently Tom took a year-long break he opened up about his sobriety and

he even returned to the stage Tom Holland is a guy who knows who he is and who he isn't and this conversation covers all of it people think a life of sobriety is sacrificing the fun but it really isn't is you'll never wake up the next day and say go I wish I had a drink last night [Music] never today's episode is brought to you by the awesome organizations that make this show [Music] possible so nice to meet you yeah thank you for taking the time of course my pleasure you've done a few podcasts but

not a lot I'm honored you would carve out the time yeah no honestly it's my pleasure I like doing podcasts because it feels more organic MH I think with when you do an interview I feel very guarded yeah and you know we just spoke earlier about this is a safe space to talk and stuff so I I really enjoy doing a podcast yeah I think over the course of however long we talk people are going to get a feel for the real you yeah and I would suspect as somebody who's got I don't know like

65 million Instagram followers and basically every time you walk out your front door you have to worry about somebody taking a photo of you and these things turn into news cycles and it's very much out of your control like there's a sense of of like vulnerability that must come with that that makes you of course you're going to be guarded yeah I think it's like you know when Surfers talk about when they crash or get hit by a big wave the worst thing you can do is like tense up you just have to kind of

roll with the punches and like let it happen I always find that if I go out in public and I try and resist the request for photos I end up having a worse day so if I just sort of go you know it's part of the job lucky to be doing it happy to take the pictures I always have a better day and I think that for me is just an example of like rolling with the punches rather than trying to fight back it's like swimming Upstream like you're never going to be able to convince

everyone to be nice about it and to say please or whatever it is you're looking for but yeah it's just part of the job I guess yeah it's uh that's what they're paying you for yeah ex have to like deal with all that [ __ ] right and to kind of be in a place of surrender and peace with it rather than like uh confrontational Alec Baldwin VI but after you know Decades of that you know maybe it just gets under your skin I mean how could it not yeah and I think as well like

I mean I don't know where Alec is from but I know being a Londoner in London if anyone speaks to you on the street as a Londoner the first thought in your mind is like why are you talking to me if someone asks you the time it's like why do you want to know the time London is so antisocial when it comes to like stranger to stranger so I think as a true Londoner growing up and then becoming famous it took me a really long time to adjust to being approached on the street I've got

used to it now it's like part of my life now but when people used to ask me for photos really early on especially after Spider-Man 1 had come out I still couldn't quite understand why people wanted to take pictures with me I used to find it really odd and my reaction was like no I don't want to take a picture with you but now I've like I've ironed that cre out a little bit well well the interesting kind of Ripple to that is that you didn't have you know a normal childhood or a maturation period

where you could kind of figure out who you are and what's important in advance of all of that like this is this is been your experience you know since you were a young kid so you had to learn how to deal with this before your brain was fully was fully formed you know what I mean still ain't fully formed I'll tell you that much for free yeah uh you and me both my friend I was really lucky that like my life changed slowly like I I started when I was really young and then I had

about 10 years before the Spider-Man thing happened uh the Spider-Man of it all was the that was the big turning point of where like everything changed and I was lucky that I had those formative years to sort of grow up make mistakes learn about set life learn about the world of movie making and then Spider-Man happened um but it definitely was a steep learning curve for sure but you seem like first of all you seem like a happy person you strike me as somebody who's who's really grounded who understands what's important who doesn't get caught

up in a lot of the nonsense maybe part of that is keeping in arms length with you know Hollywood quote unquote Hollywood and you know living in the UK and having this strong family unit and surrounding yourself with friends but it seems to have kept you sane do you still live in a house with like all your buddies I do yeah I do and um that is changing my brother and my best friend are in a transitional period of moving out uhhuh we're sort of at that stage in our 20s now where we're like we

should all it might be time yeah but it's been great my best friend Harrison who I live with I really admire he set up this fantastic Rum company called Hammer that he's been promoting and working on and stuff and seeing him kind of build that from the ground up in the house has been such a pleasure because he's so driven and he's up every morning he's out selling it he's doing all this great stuff um and he's been a real you know inspiration for me for what we'll talk about later with with beer so yeah

so I love living with them and they're really great guys to live with they're very tidy they keep the house nice cuz I'm away a lot it's nice to have people in the house it's like a reverse Entourage narrative right you guys are like healthy eating eating well we will go to the gym each other yeah yeah yeah it would it would make for a very different HBO series very boring TV show yeah like wow they're so productive but yeah I like living with my with Harry and Harrison is great because they are so productive

and the thing with acting that I've always found quite difficult is that it's either 100% or nothing so like if you're on set you're working flat out you're exhausted and if you're not working you really don't have anything to do yeah the only time that you get to practice your craft is when you're on set and getting paid to do it right like I'm not at home saying to Harrison like do you want to jump up and just run some lines quickly you don't do that I mean I'm sure some people do um so what's

been really nice working with them and working on this buau stuff is is having stuff to do outside of the acting world that keeps my mind engaged and gives me a reason to be getting up and working and and getting that training session in early in the morning because otherwise I just become really lazy yeah and I play golf too much you have three brothers Three Brothers yeah and two of them are twins right two of them are twins Sam is a chef he's a great chef which is awesome for us he lives down the

road so whenever he's trying out new recipes we always get a text and he'll just Deliver Us great food Harry's an aspiring filmmaker he's just written a great script that we've we've been sort of shopping around town and he's had a lot of interest in which is fantastic and then is he the one that had a short at Tribeca yes yeah yeah that's Harry and um and then Paddy our youngest he's acting he's doing really well but he's still just a kid it's really nice he's now at the stage where he can come on our

LS holidays with us so like we used to go away me and my mates and play golf or whatever and Patty would stay at home cuz he was only young but now he started coming with us he's great he fits him really well everyone loves him and his golf is getting much better his golf is a little shitty for a while but he's getting there your parents seem like great people like your dad's a comedian so he's able to kind of help guide you uh and avoid some of the pitfalls like I'm sure he's seen

every color of the entertainment business uh from top to bottom and it just seems like you're a good group of people you know what I mean like like just grounded like I said healthy the relationship they all seem like solid like you're very lucky in that regard Super Lucky Super Lucky and my dad especially having my dad because working in the film industry is one thing but being a part of the the comic circuit I mean that's got to be the toughest form of entertainment and dealing with that on a basis and I one of

the things I really admire about my dad is when we were kids if he had a bad gig we would never know about it he never wore it on his sleeve the next day like Dad was always as if every gig he did he absolutely ripped the roof off uhhuh and then obviously as you grow up and you your relationship with your dad changes and it becomes a little bit more honest and open you know I'll call him up and he'll be driving back from a gig and he'll be telling me about he had a

rough gig or something and I've always just really admired his ability to shake that off and I think as a younger actor I learned a lot from him when I would go for auditions that I really wanted and not got the gig right and he would sort of you know son you can't do all the jobs yeah having a healthy relationship with rejection in a business where rejection is the norm exactly yeah that for me has been such a valuable lesson I've learned from him but your relationship with rejection is a little unique like let's

go to the origin story here because it it all seems like it was predestined it happened pretty quickly at a very young age I mean you were dancing as a young kid nine 10 yeah were in a hip-hop class walk us through like how that led to the first gig well this a really interesting question actually because only recently did I find my yearbook from my primary school and I've always had this kind of narrative that I never wanted to be an actor I love performing I love being on stage I loved dancing but acting

was never something I wanted to do I have a hard time believing that I want to press you on that a little bit yeah and I'm happy to get into it because I found this book which predates any acting that I had done so I basically used to go to this dance school we did a show every year at the Royal Ballet school and the Headmaster asked me to audition for Billy Elliot on the West End long story short I went through the audition process they sent trainers to my school which was really tough cuz

it was a rugby school and all of all of a sudden like I was the one boy in the all boy school doing ballet in the gym at lunch and that came with its own set of challenges but I got the part and it wasn't until I sort of got through Billy Elliott I'd been cast in The Impossible and I was working on set with Naomi that I really started to think like oh I could be like an actor like this is what I could do but in this yearbook I must be like six or

seven when I answered these questions and the questions are like what do you want to be when you grow up what's your favorite color what's your favorite food that gets served in the canteen it's like kids questions and I wrote when what do you want to be when you grow up I wrote actor which I think is really weird because I don't remember ever wanting to be an actor but clearly I did on an unconscious level yeah I mean just to clarify so when you did that performance and were noticed by that Billy Elliott choreographer

you were like 11 no I would have been I would have been nine nine yeah yeah yeah and then there were two years where that choreographer kind of helped you out with training and saw something in you essentially right and tried to help you out so that two years later when you auditioned for Billy Elliott you were like up to speed right and so you were were you 11 then like when did the West End production begin how old were you then so I started auditioning when I was nine and throughout the process of auditioning

they were train training me in the interim so it was a huge investment on their part because they they were sending dancers to my house every day I would go to these intensive Summer Schools where I would like live in this house for six weeks in the summer and train every day I still hadn't got the part yet and then it wasn't until yeah you're right it was probably a 2-year audition period and then when I turned 11 I got the part and because I was really small and young for my age I was really

really underdeveloped they put me on as Billy's best friend first to get some like theater experience and Stage experience and then while I was doing that character I then trained and learned the Billy track and then did did the show as Billy if you had to guess or estimate what do you think that choreographer saw in you when you were nine that led her to making that investment I mean clearly there was something there was some quality about what you were doing as a young person where she thought there's something special here worth exploring I'm

not I'm not sure what it is off the Jump I couldn't tell you that it was like an overwhelming sense of talent or anything like that I think sometimes with acting being very authentic is something that comes natural to people and I've always been a very genuine person when I went to my first audition I was by far the worst dancer in the room but I was the last kid there they would like C kids so we would be there for 5 hours and every hour they'd say like if you're between numbers 5 and 25

you can go home everyone else gets to stay and I was the last kid there I did no singing no dancing just acting stuff with the director so maybe he just thought that I was very honest and was quite open and emotionally ready the dancing and that sort of stuff came later and I think I've always been very driven and if you put the word in front of me I'm really good at getting it done I'm not very good at putting the work in front of me myself I need someone to help me do that

whereas my brother Harry or Harrison with what he's done with hammer like the way he's built his little company and driven it from the ground up and he gets up and does it every day is amazing I couldn't do that you're a team player I'm I'm like tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it but don't ask me to like come up with the strategy to do it so Billy Elliott becomes this thing you get a lot of attention you're doing some press and TV this leads to this audition for The

Impossible yeah which you book like basically the first movie that's on your radar that gets you know sent your way you get it and you're in it and you're how old at this point this is the tsunami movie with Naomi Watson Y and McGregor your first movie I would have maybe been 13 and then we maybe shot the film when I was 14 uhhuh I did a few auditions in town my granny test took me to my first audition it it went really well and I remember the director Juan Antonio bayona he basically asked me

to just improvise a scene where I had to say goodbye to my mom there was no context I didn't know the stakes I didn't know that it was like a life or death situation but just being a very vulnerable honest and open kid I just started talking about saying goodbye to my mom and burst into tears and I guess that's what they were looking for they were like yeah he can cry get him but even being so young you must be thinking well I don't know about like Dad and all this rejection stuff like this

is going pretty good like it's just going to be this way going forward yeah so the interesting period of any young actor's career is when you're too old to play a kid and you're not quite old enough to play an adult and not many are able to Traverse that Canyon it's a very very tricky journey and that's why I've been so blessed that Spider-Man came along because you still have this boyish face yeah right I still especially when I cut my hair I just did this play in London and I had really long hair similar

to yourself and I cut it all off with the hopes that like it would make me look tougher and I looked in the mirror and was like I look like a 12-year-old right and I went to rehearsals the next day and everyone's like oh you look so young I was like [ __ ] that is not what I was going for boyish looks and then having to navigate that canyon to manhood and the roles that come with that yeah there's a fallow period for most actors even even the best when in that in between stage

yeah I remember my dad had a talk with me sat me down I was auditioning for this film called November criminals I would have been maybe 15 or something sure Sasha jasi yes who's a buddy of mine I was with him yesterday I really wanted that job I thought it was a really fun script I really like the character there was loads of dialogue which I really liked with the impossible it was more of a like reactionary performance I didn't really have much to say so I really really wanted this job and I remember being

in my mom and dad's old kitchen and I might have thrown something on the floor out of frustration because I'd found out I hadn't got it and my dad really put me in check like you're a kid this is the first audition you've gone for that you didn't get get over yourself right I think that part went to anel elor I think it did yeah yeah yeah yeah and he did a good job too I like the film so your first taste with rejection Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah you mentioned that you just did uh you

were just on the West End you did Romeo and Juliet which was pretty cool and that came on the heels of taking a year off after um you did the the crowded the crowded room the crowded room which you know as I understand was a very intense experience for you but one I also feel like was misrepresented in the Press like I listened to some interviews and I read some stuff and and my sense was that there was this narrative that was being imposed upon you that it was so exhausting that you needed to take

this break and they wanted to kind of portray it as some kind of mental health you know crisis that you were yeah that you were going through when you were consistently clear throughout like hey I'd already planned this I was going to take this time off and I think as a young person to have the sense of self and the awareness to say hey like I need brakes from time to time rather than to just be on this constant you know hamster wheel more more more bigger bigger bigger I I think speaks to your maturity

and your perspective thank you I was actually very disappointed with how the Press ran with it but then like I said earlier you can't fight with the Press it's you're swimming up upstream and I kind of just rolled with the punches and let it happen I think it's really disappointing that a young person in my decision who's lucky enough to have the power to say I'm going to take some time off for myself gets painted as you know something Nega negative I think we all work too hard and we should put our lives first I've

always lived by the idea that I work to live I don't live to work and I think that it's really unfortunate that that's what people took from the idea of me taking a break it's additionally uh ironic given that we're kind of in this discourse or dialogue around mental health right now uh from a mainstream awareness perspective even with you know as I mentioned you beforehand like I I was in us for the Olympics and you know mental health is something everybody's talking about whether it's Simone biles or Michael Phelps and all these athletes who

have made a point of saying that this is an important thing and there seems to be a respect around that uh but maybe not so much in in your world yeah and you know I think it's very it's very different and it's very obvious to see how someone likes Simone VES would be affected by mental health the pressure that she's under to perform at the level that she performed that she's absolutely incredible we sat down and watched her this year and I can totally see how that pressure would get to anyone you know pressure is

only natural and pressure is a privilege to a certain degree but sometimes too much pressure is too much pressure and I think mental health you know I I took a break from social media once and felt the need to kind of announce it because I didn't want to I didn't want people to worry that you know I had disappeared or something I don't know and that also was met with a a negative re action of like oh you can't hack it like you can't handle social media and I just I just think that sometimes it's

important to look up and and engage with what's around you and and and I find for me with social media I can easily sit on the couch for four hours and scroll and I haven't had Instagram on my phone I'll download it to to post something or download it if a friend of mine's post something and I want to like it for them but 99% of the time I don't have it on my phone phone and my life is so much better for not being completely glued to to this Fel false world that we have

on our phones yeah but it's a shame and I really hope it changes because I think self-preservation is so important and only a fool would say to you you should work until you crack because if you crack it's going to take you longer to get back to full fitness and and work at your top capacity so for me like taking these strategic little breaks where you can rest and recoup and come back your best self is really important and something that should be heralded rather than chastised sure if you want to have longevity in your

career it doesn't make any sense that you would play all out and leave everything on the field with a performance whether it's the crowded room or Romeo and Juliet and then immediately go into something else yeah like there's a manic kind of attitude around that or maybe a fear response like I have to always be book because maybe the phone's not going to call that comes from an insecurity or or a place of fear but having like a healthy strong sense of of yourself and knowing like hey you know I I bring something to the

table it's not going to disappear if I take a minute off like I'm thinking of like a great example would be like if you're great there's always going to be a demand right look at Oasis how long it's been 25 years or whatever and like they're going to make $400 million cuz finally they they'll make more money on this tour than they did over the of all of their albums you know what I mean the point being like if you have the goods you don't need to be in a hurry you know but to be

what are you 28 28 yeah 28 to be that young and to like own that I think also speaks to to character because I can imagine myself at 28 or most 28 year olds who are just so hungry to you know be climbing all the time and there's a kind of a hustle porn culture where it is frowned upon if you take a minute take a beat to like reassess and reboot the operating system so the next time out you can give the best of what you have 100% I don't operate well or as well

as I would when I'm tired if I don't sleep well or the thing I struggle with the most is sleep when I'm working so for me to to be able to have some time to recoup and come to set or come to work or whatever I'm doing 100% it makes a world of a difference hey everybody today's episode is brought to you by seed gut health I talk about it all the time on the podcast you know it's important if you've even listened to a few of my podcasts I think I've maybe devoted I don't

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like fundamentally setting aside all this other stuff there is kind of like a love for that yeah it's definitely like the birthplace of of my career and it's been so long since I'd done it that it felt like the first time and it was an amazing experience you know I wasn't planning on doing theater I just kind of was I was at home I had taken my year off there's obviously been a whole load of things that have happened in our industry that kind of put pause on a bunch of things and I was like

itching to find something to do I've always been really scared of going back on stage because it's just feels so exposing mhm yeah nowhere to hide there's nowhere to hide and and it's different from from moap yeah it's different yeah when you can change something or say can you just move my arm a little bit further out and I think that's what really excites me like when something stresses me out I was chatting to my friend yesterday about this actually I work really well when I don't think about whether or not I should do it

or not like with the play they called me up and they said look if you want to do this you need to let us know today cuz we got to book the theater and we'd been speaking about doing this for maybe 5 days I hadn't spoken to my family about it I hadn't really spoken to my girlfriend about it and on the phone I was like [ __ ] it I'll do it I'm happy to do it and then I started to panic because I was like what have I done like why am I doing

this but when I put myself under that kind of pressure that's when I do my best work when I start feeling really uncomfortable because it that level of uncomfortableness drives me to do the work and be focused and and learn my lines and break it down and understand the language and try and do something different and unique to what's been done before but I loved it I really loved it there's two things here first you're tackling Shakespeare yeah so it's no small in the UK in the UK UK audiences so you know the degree of

difficulty just goes like through the roof right and then secondarily how long was the run the Run was three months it was eight shows a week and it was that is an endurance yeah like having to do that every day sometimes twice a day right I was I was in London last summer and uh I was with my youngest daughter who's 17 now and we went to go see Paul Mescal in street car and it's such a visceral performance right and he's you know and he has the legacy of Brando on his shoulders like the

pressure would come with that and then I was just imagining like this guy's got to do this every day sometimes twice a day yeah it was intense like that's super intense and then you do the backstage thing and like you have to go greet all your fans every night did you do that open up the back door and sign the autographs and do all that on top of the whole thing well I guess a bit of a blessing was that we had loads of people show up and backstage was was really like a red carpet

every night so what I would do is I would sign cards in my dressing room sign like a 100 cards uh and then the security outside the theater would hand them out cuz it just I wouldn't have been able to get to everyone it would have been too crazy so I kind of came out and did a smile and a wave and and um said than you and stuff and then got in the car but the Keen fans that got out first got a little signed card but it was an amazing experience I mean trying

to stay mentally focused and not allow the show to kind of run on autopilot was really a real challenge trying to stay engaged and make sure that you're constantly listening and you know we'd have underst studies come on at certain times and they would change the tone of a scene or the speed of a scene and you had to be able to Pivot live mhm which I found really difficult but by the end a skill that I didn't know I needed that I've really kind of improved upon because you know like when you work with

Downey on set what's great about him is he'll improvise and if it lands he'll do that again but what's quite nice for you is you know that oh he's going to say that again so I have some time to prepare he's so quick that even if I write a joke that he has no idea about and then I improvisor line he'll use my joke to set up a punchline of his own joke somehow he's like so good like that you're never going to match wits with that guy no yeah and I think that having done

the play and being being able to Pivot in the ways that we had to Pivot when things would go wrong or someone would skip a speech or or you know an audience member's phone went off and you'd have to kind of keep going and not let that distract you I'm really excited to see how I've improved as a performer the next time I go on set cuz it really feels like a great place to sharpen the tools and try some new things out and you get a little bit more freedom cuz you know once the

director leaves it's kind of your show MH and you're working with the actors at warmup saying like tonight I want to try it a little bit like this do you mind if we just can you set me up with this line change the Rhythm slightly so I can land this joke and it was such a pleasure it was such a pleasure how do you make decisions about the projects that you want to get involved with I'm saying that thinking about you know somebody who's you know steeped in the MCU yeah and with that there's expectations

and pressures and a certain kind of preset trajectory for an actor of your stature but but when I look at the choices that you've made you're you're making all kinds of you know interesting different choices that are challenging you and some of them work out and some of them don't but it all feels like an experiment and and you try trying to find new ways to express yourself I think that's perfectly put it's an experiment and like I try not to think about what will this do for my career is this a an awards piece

or is this a box office bonus movie I just is it something I'd like to watch is really my biggest indicator as to whether I would do it or not and I just love being challenge my favorite thing about my job is that I get to try new things and sort of live in different skins every now and then and and become these different characters and I just love the idea of being told right you're going to Nebraska for four months to shoot a movie I'm like okay great I would never go there normally so

it would be great to go and spend some time somewhere so I I just I love everything that comes with it and it's less for me about is this going to be good for my career or more just am I going to enjoy making this I read a script a few days ago which I won't talk about because it's still being shopped around town but it was like it's the first time in my career that I've read something and gone I just don't have the energy to shoot that right now it was too intense and

it was a lot of action and all that sort of stuff and and I um it's the first time I've gone C you know what reading those sequences I don't want to make those right now when you're thinking about the choices that you're making in addition to like kind of just what lights you up generally is it the script is it the director I'm sure you have a list of directors you want to work with ambitions about you know maybe long term like what you want your career to look like and the various roles that

you want to explore but do you have a sense of what you want to do next or or even what that is sounds like you haven't decided yet no I have like three or four things that I'm kind of juggling with right now um the biggest of which is my sort of re-entry into the MCU and what that looks like it's been a really fantastic experience that um Tom and Kevin have allowed me into the kind of creative bubble of Marvel and I've got to see firsthand how these films are built from the ground up

it's been so fun to just sort of sit in the room and see these guys pitching ideas back and forth and every now and then I'll chime in with something and first and foremost with Marvel I'm a fan I grew up loving those movies so to sit in the boardroom with them and they've got this great mural on the wall of all the heroes and to kind of hear them talk about the movies and I'll come up with an idea and they'll say no you can't do that because we're doing that in the new Captain

America movie it's all out it's really cool to just see how they've got this vision for the future and um I just love being a part of that but in terms of what I want to do next I just love working on set I love the camaraderie I love the community and you have AA goldsman and we have AA who was fantastic and to be honest wrote the best scripts I've ever read it was so easy to say yes to that job when I started reading his work I was like wow this would be pleas

he's the gold standard he is the gold standard he's fantastic and he did a great job and he was so he was very brave to tackle that subject matter in the way that he did considering his past and his background um to touch on some of the personal things that have happened to him in his life I think is something that we should celebrate and admire because I'm sure he's helped a lot of people that have been through similar things through that show so I'm really proud of him that he tackled it the way he

did yeah well I'm sure he's proud of you I'd hope for how you acquitted yourself in that role yeah it was a tough one yeah yeah the haircut alone I kind of liked it I thought it was cool I thought I didn't know that that was a wig I was like you should grow your hair long it was my real hair that was oh they colored it yeah they'd made it darker and then the studio were really against the idea of me having bangs and I just really thought that it was like the icing on

the cake that would set the character apart a good tip I got from Jake Gyllenhaal actually when we worked together who I love was that you can do so much of your performance and hair and makeup so much of it can be done before you've even opened your mouth or opened your eyes and I've really taken that to heart you know like subtle nods to to different characters here and there or slightly changing the color of your hair or or even something like changing the color of your eyebrows ever so slightly I think really helps

disconnect the audience from Who You Are especially when you play a character as high-profile as Spider-Man you're so recognizable as that character so the studio were like no you can't cut your hair like that we're not allowing it we don't want you to do it and I went straight to my trailer and sat down with Rachel and was like right let's [ __ ] cut my hair off then oh no how that go over when they became aware of that I remember walking into the camera test and um the cinematographer was not happy but I

actually think it was a really good decision I think it just BRS a level of authenticity to the character and and it's so different and unique to that time that it works but bless and a she always talks about she's like no I thought you were handsome with it but I know she's she's just being kind yeah it was a rough look what do people not understand about being part of this MCU Universe I mean this isn't just a series of movies this isn't just its own cottage industry this is almost like a nation state

like it's so massive there are so many team members and people that contribute to these movies so many moving pieces it's it's bigger than any actor it's bigger than Robert Downey Jr you know it's it's just so gigantic do you find that disorienting it sounds like you found it nourishing and and all the actors that are in these movies always talk about how much they love making these movies I think firstly what sets it apart from any anything else is is the community and the sense of ownership over the characters from the fans to the

studio I feel like it's the only Studio that is working in unison with the fan group you know like fan service is a really big thing at Marvel right and you have to walk this delicate balance between fan service and moving the the story forward in new and different ways yeah and I I I just think that what's so beautiful about the entire thing as an entity is its community and when I say community it goes from Kevin fige to the most Die Hard fan and everyone in between and for me I really love being

a part of that but then in terms of like making the films I think what Marvel have done so well and Sony I mean I always have to give my credit to to Tom Rosman at Sony because he's been like my my American Dad since I've moved over here and started working over here like work stuff personal stuff like he's always the guy I call I had a meeting with him the other day where I took my dog to his office he won't mind me telling me this story so I took him to the office

and Tom's like I love dogs dogs are great you can bring the dog it's fine and I'm sitting in his beautiful office in Sony and we're chatting catching up talking about golf talking about projects that we'd love to do together and my dog is like trying to get up on the couch and I'm obviously trying to be mindful I don't know what 's like leniency is with dog behavior So eventually he's like he can go on the couch don't worry about it's fine so the noon jumps up on the couch and it's this beautiful like

white couch you know the ones with like the they're like ever so slightly fluffy expensive yeah there a box office bonus couch for sure and noon just starts digging in the couch like you know when dogs do that thing when they like dig in and I'm trying to be like no no no stop it and you can tell Tom is like through gritted teeth like it's fine don't worry about it it's fine it's absolutely fine don't worry about it but back to what I was saying sorry I think that they I'm sorry I just had

this flash I'm imagining Tom Cruz and Tropic Thunder playing Les Grossman the studio exact like throwing an absolute fit something like that yeah now but he was very gracious about it but I could tell that in the back of his mind he was like can you please get your dog to stop digging up my couch but I love Tom I owe him a lot he's been very very kind to me and a great mentor and someone I've learned a lot from from but again sorry what I was saying is that when you're on set of

a Marvel movie they're big there's green screens there's Crews of a few hundred people but again that community that Marvel and Sony build is so strong that it doesn't feel like a $200 million movie it feels like this really small intimate little character piece and that's what I think worked so well with the movies is that the fans feel like they can connect to the characters on a personal level mhm rather than it being a just kind of Jo blow action movie what have you learned other than what you already shared about working with people

like Downey because you're surrounded by so many great actors when you're I mean I'm imagining Avengers you're just they like they're all there yeah it's awesome yeah especially when I was like really young I think I was 20 or maybe I was even 19 when I was shooting Civil War and you know I was a diard well I am a dieh hard fan of the studio I felt like I sort of won some competition and was allowed to like be on set for the day but then when I had to take my mark and do

my scene with Downey it was a really overwhelming experience and I'm very grateful to Downey because I think I've told this story before when I did my audition my audition was like eight pages of dialogue it was a long scene typically an audition will be two pages your original Spider-Man audition my screen test with Downey so this was kind of like the final step although they did add another step which was like a physical test where we had to do some fight scenes and stuff and the scene with Downey was great the audition went really

well I was told by my agents to learn the lines exactly and that was kind of like a bit of advice but also because I'd been really lazy earlier in self tapes and I would rewrite things and and change it so it fit my mouth better but they said in this instance you have to learn it perfectly and then when we did my first take with Downey he just started improvising and changing everything in the script which kind of gave me license to kind of follow him and I think something I learned from Downey is

like you can't beat him but you can ride his coattails and those are good coattails to ride so in that scene I just kind of followed his lead and and we improvised and we did a bunch of stuff and I thought after that audition I was like oh I've definitely got this like that went so well is this the one where he helicoptered in that's the one where he helicoptered in but what he did with which is so great and so sweet is when I got to set after I'd got the gig and we came

to set it was me I was meeting Marissa to for the first time and I was now working with the russos and Downey was there my scene had been cut down significantly from what I'd done in the audition to now a page and a half or maybe even two pages and we start shooting the scene and Downey piped up and was like where's all the kids' lines gone and the Russo sort of said well look you know this is already a 140 page script like we can't um spend too much time on this and Downey

was the one that was like no no no you're going to want to spend some time on this like let's shoot the whole thing from the audition you can always cut it but you'd want to have it and they used all of it yeah so I owe that to him that's cool and I think that's really cool and I'd love to one day do that if I'd be lucky enough to somehow bring Mars Morales into my Spider-Man universe and into the MCU I'd love to to do for a young kid what Downey did for me

yeah well it's a way of honoring the introduction of a new character and a certain level of respect like in that audition clearly he's intentionally throwing curve balls at you see how you can handle it and when you were like all right he's he's on his game like you know we're in this together but that's it's an interesting thing you asked about like what have you learned and it's like when you work with someone like Chris Pratt he's so funny it's like don't try and outfunny him try and Elevate him to be funny like if

you're in a scene with someone and the audience is laughing I think both people in that scene are winning and I think sometimes I would really try and get hung up on like I want to be the one that's getting the laughs but I think there's just as much honor in like setting up the laugh and when you're working with someone like Downey or Chris who are just so effortlessly funny let them be funny and try and make them funnier and that's something I've learned again don't swim upstream when when you can swim Downstream well

that's back to the team sport aspect of the thing cuz at the end of the day it's like there's no pictures on a scorecard like yeah you want the movie to be as good as it can be and as successful as it can be and if that means that you know working with with Jacob on Spider-Man his character is the funny one I find the humor in being stoic and his humor comes from being funny right because his humor is elevated the more stoic you are if you're trying to be funny then it it destroys

the whole so are you in service to the scene or are you in service to yourself and that's the biggest part of acting is like being able to separate yourself from your own vanity which we all have we all look in the mirror before we leave work today and go go I'm having a bad hair day or I'm having a good day day and the moment you're thinking on camera of like do I look good do I sound good is this funny the audience can subliminally pick up on that I think yeah so it's important

to to leave vanity at the door yeah easier said than done when you're in the biggest movies in the world and these movies are grossing in excess of a billion dollars and and your face is everywhere like and you're a young dude yeah right so how you know how did you uh avoid the pitfalls and the common mistakes that a lot of young actors make when their star ascends quickly like that I mean you said you had you had years in advance of that but still you're pretty young you know many a person has fallen

prey to the those the allures of this town yeah it's interesting I was having a conversation about this sort of thing recently and we I was chatting with a fellow actor of mine and we were sort of saying like I missed the days when like getting the gig was the win but now the gig being successful is what is the win but I feel like I held on to that for a really long time even after Spider-Man getting a new job was just as exciting as being cast as Spider-Man and I think that having that

kind of freedom and in some ways ignorance to like what it was that I was doing was really helpful for me in building confidence in my own capabilities so I just I just never really give it much thought MH I try not to think about the fact that millions of people will see it and I'm going to be scrutinized it's more that thing of like if I like it and I know I've done my best a really poignant piece of advice I got from my dad again my dad is like my go-to if I'm struggling

with something or if I need some help or a bit of a boost like I'll call my dad I really admire him he told me a story about Lee Evans who's a really famous comedian in the UK he's brilliant very performative very cartoon like creates these fantastic characters on stage he sweats like a pig like he'll wear a suit and within 10 minutes of being on stage he's like dripping with sweat and my dad told me a story about when they were kids they did a gig together at like a pub maybe a couple hundred

people in this Pub and Lee was backstage putting eye drops in and my dad was a bit like what they might have been in their late 20s at this point he's like what are you doing and he goes oh it makes my eyes glisten and my dad kind of thought to himself but like Lee there's only 200 people out there you're not playing an arena and I think what my dad took from that lesson which he passed on to me was like whether it's 100,000 people or five people in the audience your best is a

minimum you can't half ass anything you can't Mark through anything and I think I've taken that on board quite heavily I've always given everything 100% I remember that all the time my dad telling me that story about I've never met Lee and I know that they were really close when they were younger but that story always really stuck with me yeah it's cool the little things are the big things yeah they make a difference yeah and those little tiny details like Jake was talking about with makeup like those tiny attention to details can really be

a make or break in building a convincing character but even if no one notices like you notice you Noti you know for your own relationship with what you do nothing brings me more Pride than sitting in a theater watching something I've been a part of and seeing an idea I had come to life nothing makes me more happy sitting there that's got to be a crazy experience especially when it comes to something like a Spider-Man movie where like had I not been in them I'd be sat here watching them cuz I love them right to

be given the the grace and opportunity to kind of be involved in the creative of those films is one of the coolest things I've ever experience well to that point of being a fan there's this iconic video of you you know as a young kid I don't know how old you were being asked like if you could play a superhero who would you play and you and you say Spider-Man and I can't help but think reflecting on that like either you're an incredibly powerful manifestor or there's some kind of predestiny at play here like the

dancing like of course all the Dance Experience plays in perfectly to Spider-Man you love Spider Man and this kind of like unfolds in your life there's a Sur there's a surreal aspect of the whole thing I guess is what I'm saying do you believe in manifestation I do yeah I do we all have a purpose I think and and our job our job here on Earth is to grow is to evolve yeah and to learn who we are we're all in a constant relationship with becoming right and I think the more attuned you are to

yourself the better position you are in to kind of manifest or realize whatever that thing is that you're here to do and it's different for everybody right yeah I mean you're in a very heightened situation but you know not everybody can be LeBron James but you know I think everybody has a thing and our job is to kind kind of discover what that thing is and so the manifestation piece is the kind of action oriented aspect of it but there's also a more gentle kind of letting go and allowing that has to happen yeah in

that process well it's that knife edge in is that fine balance of even though in that interview I said I want to be Spider-Man in the future I didn't just sit back and relax and then it happened like there's manifesting but there's also work that goes into it so it's that fine balance of is it the universe that's making it happen or is it something that you're make making happen yourself and I honestly think it's probably a little bit of both when you're working hard and for the right reasons you put yourself in a position

for those synchronicities to occur and also to be aware of them when they're occurring yeah I think so it is both it's both of those things do you think you've like manifested anything yes and no like I've worked very hard yeah but also I'm very Ware that I'm not in control that there are there are other forces at play and that I think helps with ego and humility think is important if you start to think like oh I made this whole thing happen you're on a crash course With Disaster that's a downhill slope for sure

yeah I think that's the thing with film as well one of the reasons why it's important to treat everyone with respect on set is because without them on side the movie is not going to work mhm you know and I think that it's an interesting process when you make films because when you rap on the last day more often than not as an actor you're not allowed in the edit you don't get to comment on Cuts you know you might do a bit of ADR where you get to see parts of the film and then

you see it at the premiere and I think that it's important to make sure you treat people with respect because then they'll treat you with the same respect and hopefully as a result of that the film will be the best picture it can be and I think that you know you have to put a lot of trust into other people and trust is built upon respect I think when you watch any movie but particularly these MCU movies the credit scroll at the end is endless right and you you realize like there's so many people it's

incredible play a vital part in getting that Vision realized to the screen and the idea that you're not even seeing it until the premiere yeah do you go to Dailies like do you know are you just well even dailies like you're just in map with green screen like you're not even really it's hard to even imagine how that performance is going to get transformed into what you ultimately see in these movies because there's so much CGI and everything else that goes into giving it a sense of ver yeah and one of the unfortunate things about

Spider-Man 3 was we shot it in like peak covid times so we shot everything in a studio which meant that I think throughout the entire process of making that film film I might have done 3 days on location and you can feel it in the film I think like when we're walking through New York they sent a crew to New York to shoot the streets with a motion camera jib MH and then they brought that piece of Kit back to Atlanta and then they would mark on the floor like there's an extra here there's a

dog here there's a sidewalk here and then I would have to try and map out what I was going to do in a pre-existing shot yeah that's bizarre one of like this is such a weird thing and this going to make me sound really difficult but I didn't I got I got over it and we figured it out but like the camera was moving way slower than Peter Parker would usually walk Peter Parker's very bubbly very quick everything is about getting from A to B as quickly as possible without thinking and this shot that they

had was like this really kind of slow Meandering camera angle through New York yor and Peter is supposed to be like in a rush to get to Doctor Strange to ask him this question and I found it really difficult to like portray I'm stressed and in a rush but walking really slowly and I actually think that shot isn't in the film cuz I don't think it worked at could they just speed up the background footage but then people would be like walking like this I see all all the indiv yeah I got you I got

you I wish it was that simple but yeah you there's a lot of trust involved when you're making a movie like that over the last decade of Hosting this podcast my mission has been to engage in what I consider to be critically important conversations about the things that matter most in life while I'm immensely grateful for the growth of this show I've also come to realize that my voice alone is not enough this Mission cannot be a solitary Endeavor so I wanted to find a way to help amplify other meaningful voices and the result is

voicing change media this beautiful Consortium of thinkers storytellers artists and Visionaries all committed to fostering meaningful exchanges intentionally curated for those committed to the path of self-discovery together we're creating a space of growth a space of understanding where every exchange has the potential to enrich our lives and catalyze profound personal and planetary change visit voicing change. media to learn more And subscribe can we talk about uh your sobriety please yeah yeah so in what was it January of 2022 you decided to put the booze in the rear viw I didn't decide to put the booze

in the rear view to begin with I just decided to do dry January and in doing dry January it really scared me because I had a really tough time I couldn't quite wrap my head around how much I was struggling without booze in that first month and it really scared me so I decided as a sort of punishment to myself that I would do February as well as January and I would do two months the second month was no easier if anything like it got a little bit harder so then again I was starting to

kind of panic thinking damn like I have a bit of an alcohol thing I'd had a you know quite an upsetting conversation with a doctor about my liver a year earlier and as a young kid I ignored the doctor as we all do and I started to think like oh wow maybe I have a bit of an issue here so then I started to go I'll do March and I got through March and started to feel a little bit better but was still really struggling so I said to myself if I can make it to

June 1st which is my birthday and I can do six months without booze I will have then proved to myself that I don't have a problem I'm just young and enjoying a drink and then by the time I'd done six months sober I really started feeling the benefits I started sleeping better I was handling stressful situations better my relationship was better my relationship with my family was better my relationship with my work was better and I just sort of said to myself let's do a year let's get through the first year and then that would

be a wonderful achievement and then by the time I'd cross that annual Mark I was done I was like I'm never going to drink again because this is the best version of myself what was your relationship with alcohol prior to that decision it was a complicated one because it was my go-to to celebrate and my go-to to commiserate and as an actor working at this kind of juncture there's a lot of that the movie comes out it does really well the TV show comes out and it absolutely dies on its ass and then you go

for a job interview that you don't get and you're constantly like this which means that you always have a reason to be drinking or I felt like I always had a reason to be drinking I was never a bad drunk or anything like that I just when I started I just couldn't stop right I wasn't the type of person that could nip to the pub for a pint like if I was going to the pub I was I was going to the pub to close you're closing it I wanted to lock the door behind me

not so bad that the cops aren't getting involved and you're blacking out and waking up in weird places and that's why I've been so blessed to have the people around me that I've had my brothers my girlfriend my family they never allowed that to happen but left your own devices maybe yeah yeah yeah yeah I polished off a mini bar one too many times yeah so you were like 26 it's interesting actually Kevin fee told me a story about when I I did my first screen test with Downey the night before I polished off the

mini bar and Marvel found out about that they know all yeah the eye of Sauron cuz I I told Kevin did I tell Kevin or did he tell me but whenever it came up in conversation he was like yeah yeah yeah we know about that we asked the hotel and I was like oh [ __ ] still got the job though have you ever talked to Downey about yeah yeah yeah he's been a real Ally for me he is all in yeah like he works his program so hard and makes sure that it's always his

number one priority yeah he's very generous with it he's really helpful and Amy Pascal has been really helpful I had quite a nasty thing happen to me this weekend where I went to a restaurant and ordered a non-alcoholic gin and tonic and it was alcoholic and I took a Gulp and kind of put it down and was like wow that's really good that really is a great replacement ask the waiter to come over to ask what non-alcoholic gin is that because it's the best I've ever had and bless him he'd made a mistake and it

really upset me like I was really quite beaten up by it I sort of sat at the table and it was um a real storm cloud came over my head but I spoke to Amy I called her up and sort of was like this just happened and I'm a little stressed out about it and she kind of tempered my nerves which was nice so you you make this decision you kind of weather this discomfort over a series of months um but you did this on your own like you didn't go to AA you sort of

course corrected you had this sense about yourself like this is headed in the wrong direction yeah left unchecked this is going to go to a dark place and what's interesting is all of the discomfort that persisted for month after month like there's a difference between abstinence and emotional sobriety right like as I often say you know the the drugs and the alcohol aren't the problem they're the solution right like they're your best friend because they're allowing you to divert all those uncomfortable feelings that you experience in various situations and then when you remove it you're

like a live wire with all these emotions and it's confusing because you've never really had to confront them because every time they come up you just take a drink and they go away right so what is your relationship with that discomfort like how did you quell it or you know what is your way of like working through whatever that is so that you can be in this place of feeling like I'm good I'm me I can go anywhere and I don't have that compulsion it definitely took a while um to get to a place to

feel comfortable going into bars and pubs and stuff like that I think the realization for me was that I'm a very confident person but I'm more confident when I'm pretending to be someone else because the ramifications of your actions aren't real cuz you're pretending so I would get really uncomfortable and not confident in Social scenarios out in public and I when you're just being you when I'm just being myself and I think that's why I really latched onto drinking because it masked that insecurity with stupidity I guess a little bit that's why like I've always

had a really hard time with like campaigns like I did a Prada Campaign which I loved and I loved working with them they were great but I had a really hard time seeing me on a billboard sell something because it was me Tom Holland not as a character so I think that's kind of why I latched onto it so much and through perseverance and kind of gritted teeth and fomo of not wanting to miss out I would force myself to go to bars and go to pubs and enjoy the beer garden for the football and

when I realized that alcohol wasn't masking my insecurity or bringing out my best self it was actually doing the opposite I then started to feel this freedom of like oh I can just be myself and I have nothing to be insecure about that's when it started to get easier and I started to really feel the benefit of not being kind of tied to this drink I used to remember going to parties in in La when I CU at the beginning you know as a young kid you try to fit into into the LA world and

now that I've grown up a little bit and I know that it isn't my place to be I don't try as hard to like go out to the LA parties and mix with celebrities that I don't know but I used to go to these parties and be like I can't speak to someone until I'm drunk like I've got to get this going and now that I've kicked that and I found Replacements that make me feel like I'm a part of the process without sacrificing my morning my afternoon my next few days has been so Liber

racing well the real guilded opportunity in all of this is that it pulls the covers off uh all of those emotional wounds or weaknesses or fears or insecurities and puts you in a position where you have to look at them you deal with it and so here is your opportunity like why is it that like I'm in movies and I go to a party and I feel insecure when I have to be myself like what's beneath that like what what's driving that like why would I feel that way sure and I think like running towards

that is the path of healing like how do you know going beneath the surface like what led me to feel this way and how can I kind of untie those knots so that I could go anywhere and just feel good in my in my own skin um and I think you know sobriety is tricky like if somebody just has an occasionally problematic relationship with alcohol maybe there isn't some deep seed dysfunction that really needs to be dealt with but if you truly have a problem to me and my experience in kind of being in this

world for a very long time like there's always something to look at there and you're presented with this choice you can either like grip the edge of the table and like White Knuckle it but that's not a great strategy at some point you're going to crack right instead you have to release and like be again to what we were talking about earlier like in this place of acceptance and and surrender that is so much harder than anything you've ever had to do where you're using yourself will s but that's the you have the RS that

and so I guess I'm just curious like do you did that prompt you to do some therapy or to really look at that stuff or how have you kind of confronted yourself in in in those you know deeper ways I'm really lucky that I've got people around me that I'm very comfortable speaking openly with they're by no means like professionals and able to unpack things in the way that a pro would be able to but I've just been very open with my family with my friends you know my friends all drink and you know we've

had so many conversations about why I'm giving up or how it's going or they've decided to take a little break and they're asking me for help on you know what's the best way to do this facing those demons is just again something I sort of did by myself the idea of like sort of pulling my socks up and being like your mates are going to to the pub you're not going to not go because you want to hang out with your friends you've been away for 6 months you haven't seen them so you kind of

just got to grit your teeth and bear it and the more I kind of did that the more I could kind of let go and relax and then the more I let go and relax the more I started to feel the benefits of being free and having a life enriched and and enjoying the freedom from alcohol so no I didn't ever really seek professional help I just had great family and friends yeah good for you thank you I feel like culture is Shifting there's there is such a groundwell Embrace of the alcohol-free lifestyle like it's

not like it was when I was a young person there's all these cool movements are you familiar with like one year no beer in the UK like those guys are friends of mine like I know those guys and and it's just cool to see people who who don't necessarily have a drinking problem but are like do I need this and they go on this journey and realize like their life is so much better to your point they're sleeping better Etc but their life just expands there's this idea like if you stop drinking like your life

is going to get really boring and small and it's actually quite the opposite and I feel like your generation and gen Z really get this like my uh my boys are your age they're musicians Trapper had a birthday and they were out like at a bar in Echo Park the other night and they came back and like they were like yeah no one was drinking they're having like mocktails everybody could drive home like that just blows my mind like I can't imagine being 28 years old and like going to a bar and and not everybody

just getting absolutely smashed sure it's an amazing thing that it's changing and I think it's great that you know people shouldn't feel pressured to to get wasted and and drink for any other reason than being social I love it I and you know with these non-al beard now I love the idea of like my mates come over on a Tuesday night they've all got work at 5: in the morning tomorrow we can share a few beers but there's no consequence to it there's no attachment to it the next day you get to be rid of

it and free and you get to live this life enrich you don't have to sacrifice anything because I think that's what you're right people think a life of sobriety is sacrificing the fun but it really isn't you just have to be bold enough to like take that step to try it and once you get across the line you're like wow the social uh Dynamics are the trickiest because people future trip right well how am I going to go to this wedding how am I gonna you know next year how am I going to go to

this B you know like I can't imagine so so I'll drink today you know uh because that just seems impossible and a lot of people are in Social environments where there is that pressure it sounds like your friends are are not those guys like they're not the ones saying come on one drink it's what's a big deal or put putting pressure on you but a lot of people do are in environments like that yeah yeah yeah and I I hope that can change you know I am so blessed I mean my mates that I hang

out with that I used to drink with they're all Tradesmen Carpenters welders they work on sets they build the sets and they love a drink you're a carpenter too right didn't you study carpentry sort of yeah my granddad bless him who who only passed away a few weeks ago he was a carpenter and he Tau me carpentry MH so I'm going to uh hopefully one day one of my goals is to have a property where I can have a little workshop on site and keep up that little family tradition of of carpentry I wouldn't call

myself a carpenter I have built know your around you know your way around I could fix a door for you if it came off the hinges one of my favorite things is if something breaks in Z's house I take huge pride in fixing it yeah the other day she has this guest room which was it wasn't the greatest room like it needed scho masculinity yeah I like built her these cupboards and put a new wardrobe up for her and like fitted it in so it looked like it was part of the wall and um I

was very proud of myself yeah yeah have you ever worked with Harrison Ford I haven't so you could chop it up with him love to chat to him about that yeah yeah yeah swapping notes right but you know I'd love to um I'd love to take my carpentry to the next level and and be at a situation where you know a friend of mine says oh we're looking for some new bedside tables and I'll say oh let me make you some right in case this whole acting thing doesn't work out well maybe it might be

my get out plan it might be my like sail off into the sunset or you just be that old codger like in in the garden like making your you know making a bench or something a flower pot exactly absolutely let's talk about uh Bureau so you're so passionate about this alcohol-free lifestyle that you actually decided to jump all in and and create your own like non-alcoholic beer MH so what was the inspiration for that I think as an actor in my position I'd been approached loads of times by different companies to set up something whether

it could be you know an alcohol a rum a vodka a beer a clothing line all that sort of stuff and I'd never come across anything that sparked any sense of passion in me and it wasn't until I got sober and I was dealing with the struggles of getting through that every day and I noticed a void where there weren't good enough replacements for people like me who wanted to go to the pub enjoy the social aspects of it share some golden juice with your friends and then go home and I thought to myself wouldn't

it be a great thing if I could turn not only my sobriety into a great thing for my lifestyle but a great thing for my future and a tool for other people who are maybe trying to achieve the same thing that I have um but then also a product for someone like my dad my dad loves a beer after work or when he gets home but sometimes he doesn't want to drink but he just wants to crack something open and drink it so I just started kind of going around town and and asking my agents

to help me find people that were setting up these companies I spoke to athlet and you know I was a big fan of theirs and Bill shlat yeah was sort tried to kind of get involved there but they were doing so well that they didn't need any help which I totally respect and then I started speaking to my agents about like well what if I set up my own one and you know it's a pretty daunting task but their WME are so fantastic at putting the right people on the table so I met with this

company called imaginary who are an investment Venture Capital company and we kind of had this idea of building our own product and it's been one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done for me it's felt like a school project of like do you guys have The Apprentice in America sure it feels like I'm on The Apprentice yeah remember remember the other president who was the head of the oh [ __ ] that's right he did do it didn't he cuz we had Alan sugar did it in England oh yes that's right he did do

that yeah yeah yeah I remember now but it's been such a joy working with the creative departments figuring out what we want the company to represent I think it's really important for me that buau isn't ramming sobriety down people's throats it's for everyone it's for people that don't drink it's for people that want to drink less and it's for people that drink a lot but one night they just they need to wake up early and be switched on the next day MH and I think that it represents this this void in the market I noticed

that you know all non-alcoholic beers like Peroni or hinin zero or Guinness zero they're all blue all of their cans have like a blue connotation so like beex is beex blue Peroni is Peroni blue and I think that's really unfair because it's like you're in the bar with a big signpost saying like I'm drinking a non-al beer so my goal was to come up with something that you could drink in a bar that was as appealing that scratched the itch as much as a real beer but you didn't have to pay the price for it

in the morning and something that was inclusionary rather than exclusionary MH so my hope is is that buero can represent the non-alcoholic beer market and that it can be something where people like myself can feel included in a place where I sometimes feel excluded it's great man I think it suits you perfectly uh it's smart um when you see people like Ryan Reynolds and George Clooney with their Spirits companies I mean obviously this is like a smart play for anybody who's in a position like you to explore but to marry it with a real passion

you know to be not only you know kind of the face of this thing but also an evangelist of a lifestyle that is about community and connection I think it's I think it's great and I think that this segment this Market is exploding and only going to continue to grow you know Bill at athletic told me his whole story like when he started like he couldn't find anybody to work with like he had a brewer partner and they just couldn't even find anybody to do small batches because everybody was like there's no market for this

and the products that have always existed have been to your point kind of like wave the flag you know for the problem trinker where you're just kind of announcing it feels like they're just checking a and it's about like the negative aspects of this rather than kind of pushing the ball forward towards like the positive lifestyle aspects of this so well I think the the language with with alcohol-free drinks is always about what they're lacking and what we want to promote is what you're gaining that's why we're kind of coining this idea of a life

enriched just because there's less alcohol in it doesn't mean that it's lesser beer it's brewed the same it's the same ingredients it's just ever so slight slly different so for me it's not about what it doesn't have it's what about you gain from having it and I think that that is something I'm really passionate about I think to what you asked me earlier like what is it about a project that gets me excited in terms of acting it's like do I believe in the message do I believe in the story is it something I'm passionate

about if yes my foot's in the door I'm ready to do it and that's exactly what buo has presented to me here an opportunity to tap into something I've never sort of understood before but I'm really passionate about making a difference and helping people out I'd love to have had a buau in my first year of sobriety it would have made it a lot easier for me and I hope that maybe in the future it can help people afterwards you brought some you're going to you're going to let Mee some of it maybe we'll take

a quick break and we can like bring it out yeah just appear in the middle yeah look what magically appeared I know isn't it amazing you can you believe this is just it's like a Spider-Man movie I just was saying it's really interesting like when you're doing press for something like a film especially and it's been a secret for so long when you talk about it for the first time there is this weird adjustment process of like I'm not supposed to talk about this I've been keeping it a secret for so long and now the

floodgates have opened and this is the first time I've ever spoken to any about this it's been under lock and key like even guys at my golf club are like what is this thing you you keep rushing off to work on and I haven't told anyone so I'm really happy today how long have you been working on it I mean the creative we've been working on it for about a year in terms of like the the liquid itself like what it tastes like the flavors that we want to try and enhance The Branding and the

marketing which is the the part of the process that I was most involved with was probably what a 5 month process 5 to 6 months 7 months which was great was awesome but then the setting it up and and hiring the right people that was about four or five months beforehand and we've been so lucky John our CEO I met with two guys and the moment I started speaking to John I knew that he was the guy that was going to represent what I wanted to try and create the best he was very authentic he

was very honest and kind and thoughtful but also incredibly driven and successful so I was I was really drawn to him and I think how he's helped me and our team get to where we are is a testament to him as our as our leader which is great yeah it's cool so what do we got here you got a couple for people that are just listening and not watching on video you got like we have a a bureau presentation here we have three different kinds so we I've SKS is a new thing I've learned in

my rapid business life we've got three we've got um EDG Hill IPA which is like a hazy IPA which is my favorite EDG Hill is uh the hill in which my school is on top of of uh so that's kind of where I grew up the green is the Kingston pills it's a like a classic take on a pills Kingston is where I grew up so that kind of represents home and then the cream is the wheat the noon wheat named after my little dog which is one of our favorites and they're great for me

they really scratch the itch it's been such a pleasure learning about the process of brewing beer the difference between brewing non-al beer and you know your full strength beer and then also having the ability to to ask grant our brew master I'd love to have a stronger aftertaste of hop with the with the hazy and then he'll explain how he'll go about doing that and all that sort of stuff so being able to build a product that's tailored for my taste that I get to share with everyone has been awesome which one should I try

well what do you like what's your go-to kind of beer I mean not too heavy I mean listen first of all I went to treatment in 1998 okay so you were like what two years old I would have been two years old yeah okay so it's been a minute okay you know what I mean so it is a weird thing because because it's been so long and I didn't like get sober and then kind of drink nonalcoholic beer that I'm of two minds with it like on the one hand I think it's fantastic these things

exist but it's also it's also it's a weird thing because when I taste it because now they're so good right like I'm like am I having a beer and like it lights up a part of my brain that freaks me out a little bit one of the things I'm really excited about with beero is that we are never going to bring out a full strength beer so you know that when you are holding that gold can you're safe yeah there's no booze in it so which one the light the the wheat that's a wheat so

that would be like a heison or a blue moon uhhuh then your pills no would probably be the lightest of the three let me try that that's kind of your standard larer and then this is the really juicy one this is the I'll taste both but like and by the way I should say this isn't like a you know like this isn't like a sponsored thing there's no yeah like there's no like I'm just doing this because I believe I believe in what you're trying to accomplish and I think the alcohol free lifestyle is such

an important one and to the extent that there are options and Alternatives out there for people like I'm supportive of that and that's where it ends so so if people think like there was money that got exchang no that's not what this is about at all she is my Shar there you go all right well I'm honored that you would come here first yeah man it's it's so wild there's like such a vivid sense memory like my brain immediately goes to some party that I was at like you know like when I was you know

25 or whatever sure it's a trip I mean it tastes really good but it is it is like it is it is a little freaky if I'm being totally honest because it's so close and again like back to what I was saying is now that we are getting so close and it's really difficult to discern the difference it's so important to me that this kind of colorcoded thing for our company becomes the gold standard of what non-al is so that you know there's no sense of doubt that Al when is it gonna when am I

going to feel it like I can feel my brain going okay just give it a minute you'll start to feel it yeah oh my God but it's not coming don't worry you can drink as many of those as you like and home that's the hazy this is my favorite the ipas were my go-to it's really juicy oh yeah I like that one yeah it's nice I'm also reminded of several months ago I had the guy who founded upside Foods in here who is pioneering cellular meat so he's growing oh yeah he's growing like chicken in

these like Brewing yet I mean it's it is a brewing process almost and he brought his chicken product so I haven't eaten meat in a very long time and tasting that was also like a weird that was wild that's but it is real chicken just without the sentient animal yeah yeah yeah wow it's wild really it's a crazy future I haven't tried it I'd be very interested to try it though I mean it tasted exactly like it and he would say that it's actually a healthier because they can toggle down the saturated fat or you

know they can kind of make it a little bit healthier and it's not infused with antibiotics hormones and all the like it didn't grow up in you know some disgusting situations [ __ ] and stuff and then also it has the texture and the flavor of what a chicken would have if it wasn't so domesticated you know like more like before humans started the you know kind of screw with the genome and the living conditions and what I know this might sound like people have a huge thing they have like there's a huge resistance to

it like there's a huge ick Factor like this is unnatural and I get that but when you consider how many billions of these animals are slaughtered and the conditions in which they're raised like it begs the question of what is natural yeah and also like look at bananas like bananas aren't supposed to look like they do but they've been right genetically and modified to look that way and stay riper for longer and all that sort of stuff so even the things that we think are natural are not natural right they grow the cells on like

a lattice work I guess I don't know exactly how they do it to there's a lot that goes into creating the right texture Etc but you know they're basically like muscle cells that they're literally growing so they would just grow a chicken breast basically yeah how does it work with like like growing a chicken leg I don't know do they grow the bone in there or I don't know I don't know but I mean they're working on they you know they have beef they can basically do whatever you know and then you're like well could

you like grow human meat like so people are going to be Canales like it's like weird but I guess like that's like one step in the direction for like regenerative medicine mhm of you know amputees maybe in a 100 years down line future of of what's possible yeah I to some conference and there were some scientists and doctors who were pioneering like growing heart tissue and lung tissue yeah it's like we're entering a crazy new world yeah I think skin grafts and stuff like that will change and we work with a charity called Deborah in

the UK and their American equivalent is called ebrp it's a charity that helps kids with EB which is a disease called epidermis Bosa and it's essentially like to my understanding we have nine layers of skin that all move over each other that's why our skin is so flexible but to someone with EB their skin is fused together so they don't have that luxury so if they were to quickly close their hands their skin would crack and it's gnarly they bleed and they're blistered all over their bodies they have terrible uh Health complications down the line

and their life expectancy is very short the benefit to EB though is that there's only one degenerative Gene whereas with cancer there's hundreds of thousands of genes that can go wrong so EB is at the Forefront of gene therapy so when all these people are trying to use gene therapy to kind of change the world EB is the one that they're trying to solve because they know what the the defective Gene is and they've now got these topical treatments and and all sorts of different things that are working that are like making a difference and

there's no cure for it yet but they are on the Press of of curing it and when they cure it and they unlock that technology that will change the world that's cool yeah it'll be crazy and philanthropy is a big piece of your life too right you have a trust and you have your tentacles in lots of different areas with that so for me what I love about the brothers trust which is really the thing I'm most proud of is the ability to be boots on the ground and see the difference that is made by

helping these different people and raising awareness for certain things like EB no one knows about it yeah I've never heard of it no one's ever heard about it so I love being able to bring attention to things like that and and all that sort of stuff and I love being able to see the difference that we make as a trust um we've traveled to see the different charities and I love it I really find it to be something I'm super passionate about and my mom God bless her she's an absolute Saint she runs the whole

family Enterprise right yeah so my brothers and I are kind of like the face of the operation and then my mom is is the engine and she runs it and and um it's a full-time job for her and and she's great she really we couldn't do it without her I'm curious about your relationship with your own potential for transformation because you've put alcohol in the rear view this thing that was problematic that was challenging and difficult for you to let go of right those experiences are transformative in and of themselves because they give you this

sense of possibility and and potential when you unleash something latent like that right what's currently challenging you or tripping you up now that maybe you need to look at or address I think the biggest thing that I'm challeng facing right now which is without a shadow of a doubt the most first world problem that anyone has ever experienced is the Power of Choice and it comes down to Spider-Man when I signed my contract for Spider-Man 1 I signed a six picture deal I was 18 years old I was more excited than I'd ever been about

anything ever and for the last 10 years I have been at the beck and call of Marvel and Sony and proudly so it's been the best experience of my life I'm now at a juncture where I can say no and now that I've been afforded that power I am struggling to figure out what is the right thing to do it's meant I've had to put my foot down in certain instances which I haven't been allowed to do in the past and I think the learning curve that I'm on right now is dealing with that new

sense of power making sure that I don't abuse it but making sure that I do the best thing for me rather than for the studio and really the best thing for the character I don't want to make another movie for the sake of making it I don't want the studio wants you to make another Spider-Man oh yeah yeah yeah they do and I want to make another one I want to make many more but I want to do it for the right reasons and now like I said to you earlier sometimes I miss the day

when getting the job was the win on I am navigating and figuring out what having that kind of power means and that responsibility yeah and I'm figuring it out and I'm speaking to people and asking questions and you know I've been speaking to Downey a lot especially about him making his return which is super exciting he's back he's gone on that exploration and he still came back to do more that was a tough secret to sit on cuz I have a reputation for ruining things and I like strategically have done no lopped around Secrets yeah

yeah I guess in terms of challenges or things that I'm dealing with that would be it and I'm by no means complaining it's a wonderful place to be but it is something that keeps me up at night and I'm constantly thinking of like is this the right thing to do am I going to do justice to the character am I going to do justice to the fans I definitely don't want to just make a movie for the sake of it cuz that's not what Spider-Man represents so yeah it's a complicated one that is that is

complicated it's going really well though yeah it is this is what we call a high quality problem you know it's like Cry me a river right but it's a problem nonetheless and a huge it's a huge decision that has you know kind of Downstream implications for a lot of people right and also interesting to me because I've heard you talk about being sort of an unrepentant people pleaser right and so it's it's confronting you with your innate people pleasing Tendencies yeah to try to make a decision outside of that that is is not only in

your best interest but in the best interest of the franchise and you know what is in service to this to this character that's much larger than you and what you want to do and the fans as well like yeah I owe everything to the fans of of Marvel and and myself they've been so kind and generous to me like after civil war came out I felt like Civil War was my audition to the world like I'd gotten the part of Spider-Man I did the film with the Russo brothers and that came out and that to

me me felt like my will you embrace me as Spider-Man and they did and I'm so grateful that they did and I feel like I owe it to them to give and deliver the best version of what the next chapter for Spider-Man looks like and I think that's really important and I think the the creative Integrity for something like that is really important and the studio is on board and and supportive and and really collaborative and I've been so Blown Away by how welcoming they've been into that creative room but you know we're working now

with the pedal is to the metal we we're trying to get it going as soon as possible things are looking great but there's still a lot of moving pieces that need to come together for us to hit the ground running right so so what is the ticking clock on this decision and what are the variables is it the script the team the story like how are you going to make this decision what are the factors that come into play that's going to sway one way or the other I'm not really sure about how much I

can talk about in terms of what are some of the challenges we Face creatively and logistically listening you know come on listen obviously one of the things to like bear in mind with Marvel is that there is your film is a small Cog in a large machine and that machine has got to keep running and you need to make sure that you can fit into that timeline at the right time to benefit the the bigger picture an infinite number of machines across the Multiverse yes exactly so you know that's one of the challenges we're facing

and and the time in which we need to get that done is a tall order but definitely achievable um with the Fantastic people we have working on it now but my biggest thing is the creative we have a creative and a pitch and a draft which is excellent it leads work but the writers are doing a great job and I read it 3 weeks ago and it really like lit a fire in me zinder and I sat down and read it together and we at times were like bouncing around the living room like this is

a real movie worthy of like the fans respect but there's a few things we need to figure out before we can we can get that really going but it's exciting and I'm really really excited about it you straddled uh that that question well and avoided the political pitfalls every bit of media training what you needed to say yes well done thank you well done uh it's not for me to say whether you disclose something you shouldn't have but you know it was uh it was handled beautifully yeah if this had alcohol in it I'd be

in trouble I know yeah I I'm like am I drunk no I'm not drunk no you're having a good time well why don't we close this out with just a few Reflections or thoughts for somebody who's flirting with you know the alcohol-free lifestyle maybe alcohol call a problem maybe it's not but they've been inspired about what you had to share about like how much better your life is and and they're looking to take the first step like where does that person begin how should they navigate it what can they expect and and maybe some tools

that might be helpful well I think for me try a life of less and you know I think what we have here with beero is a beer that does both you know it scratches the itch of wanting to have that drink but you don't have to sacrifice the next day I think that it's a beautiful Journey one that I've made friends for life on people that I've related to and and built relationships with that I didn't have before but then through sobriety we've become really close friends and I just think there's no harm in giving

it a go because my lawyer is sober and he's someone that has been really helpful for me especially in times where I've been at a bar like ooh I want to have a drink and he gave me a piece of advice once which was really helpful which was you'll never wake up the next day and say go I wish I had a drink last night never and that for me has been really helpful and I hope that buo can fill that void for people I'm really proud to be here today and I'm really proud to

have a product that I can stand 10 toes down and represent and believe in the message and and know that there's more to this product than making money like I really want to make a difference in this space and I really want people to have something that helps them feel included very cool so if people want to learn more about buau and pick some up how do they do that so October 16th buob brewing.com you can get it nationwide and then first of January next year just in time for dry January we should be in

stores nationwide at some major retailers hopefully it will grow and grow and grow and the community will grow with it it's a mission yeah know it's a mission um and it's and it's needed you know there's a lot of a lot of people out there suffering unnecessarily unaware that a better experience of life is freely available and that's that's the beautiful thing is it's not even freely available it's like cheaper yeah that's right right it's not even free it's like that you're essentially pay you to do it yeah and if you're hung up about what

your friends are going to say everyone's self-obsessed they're not thinking about you anyway and you could put one of these Bureau in your hand and and no one will know that no one will be the and everything is going to be fine exactly there you go and I feel like with something like this in your hand like no one's going to be questioning whether that's got booze in it or not cuz it's a beer it looks like a beer can it doesn't have less than it's Brew the same it's a beer it's not blue either

and it's not blue when we were working with the colors cuz I like the idea that the different colors are easy to remember something I don't like about Craft brewery is when you go to the bar and they're like which one do you want and you're like but I don't know the names of them there's like seven different hazy these and hazy that I like the idea of like I like an IPA give me the red one I like a pills give me the green one there you go simple all right man well I love

what you're doing uh I appreciate you coming here and sharing your message and uh you're a you're a solid young man thanks very much I appreciate I'm a fan and uh Consider Me At Your Service I really appreciate it thank you so much it's been a pleasure peace fantastic [Music] that's it for today thank you for listening I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest including links and resources related to everything discussed today visit the episode page at Rich roll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive my books Finding

Ultra voicing change in the plant power way as well as the plant power meal planner at meals. roll.com if you'd like to support the podcast the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple podcast on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment this show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep this podcast running wild and free to check out all their amazing offers head to Rich roll.com slss sponsors and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends

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