Tom Holland stood on the red carpet at the Odeon Luxe cinema in London's Leicester Square on Monday night, aware that his latest role marks the start "of a new chapter of my life." The 30-year-old Spider-Man star, now a married man, plays Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's hotly anticipated fantasy epic The Odyssey, a part he calls "a real pinch-me moment."
“The thing that I love the most is that it feels a little bit like the last chance for me to play a boy,” Holland said. His character is the only son of Odysseus, so young when his father left for the Trojan wars that he doesn’t remember him — except through the mythical stories of his exploits. On screen, Holland shines as a young man of around 20 searching for the absent father he has put on a pedestal, while trying to protect his mother Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, from the predatory suitors who have taken over their palace.
“Tom Holland calls playing Telemachus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey a 'real pinch-me moment'.”
Holland’s now-wife, Zendaya, also appears in the film as the goddess Athena — though, unlike in the Spider-Man movies, never on screen with her husband. Holland revealed that he read the script with her, "which I don't know if I was supposed to." When he met Nolan the next day, “he asked me if I would be OK with him asking Zee to play Athena… I went home and I was able to break the news to her... it was a very special moment.” Of Zendaya’s reaction, Holland said: “The little corners of her mouth went up. She had this little smile and then we both started jumping around the kitchen.”
Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus, recalled receiving the call from Nolan: “I'd like to offer you the lead role. So I just said 'Yes'. And he goes 'Don't you want to hear what it is?' I said 'Sure'. And he said 'It's a two-word pitch. The Odyssey'.” Damon’s character spends 10 years fighting the Trojan wars and another 10 trying to return home.
Hathaway, 43, pulls off another outstanding performance as Penelope, and at the premiere she proudly showed off her growing baby bump. Zendaya ensured all eyes were on her with a breastplate that made her look like a goddess, as the stars walked the red carpet in the London sunshine.
For Holland, the role of Telemachus feels like a turning point — the final chance to play a youth before stepping fully into adulthood, both on screen and off.
