Tom Holland reveals the surprising career he’d have chosen if he wasn’t an actor
The Spider-Man star had a candid answer ready during an interview promoting The Odyssey, and the story behind it is more personal than anyone expected.
During a rapid-fire interview for the 21 Questions show with host Tom Simons, Tom Holland and Matt Damon sat down to promote their new film, The Odyssey. The questions came fast, covering favorite filming locations, comfort TV, and Greek gods, but one near the end of the session landed differently. If you weren’t actors, what would you be doing? Holland’s answer wasn’t directing, producing, or anything remotely connected to Hollywood.
A craft that runs in the family
Holland didn’t hesitate and said carpentry.”All my family is tradesmen on my mom’s side,” he told Simons, “so they’re all carpenters.” He said that after doing a carpentry course, he didn’t get any work, and acting eventually became his career. What’s clear from the way he talked about it is that this is something he genuinely loves, not a celebrity hobby to mention in interviews.
“Forming something out of wood, making something for someone that’s going to last a really long time,” he said, summing up what he loves about the craft. He said he made his mom’s kitchen table, built cabinets for his own bedroom, and constructed a table for his home. He also helped his grandfather build his mom’s home office from scratch. These are the kinds of projects you take on when the outcome actually matters to you.
Matt Damon, sitting beside him, chimed in, saying his own brother is a TIG welder and woodworker who works across multiple materials. “He’s an artist,” Damon said. For a moment, two of the biggest names in Hollywood were swapping notes on the trades, and it felt completely genuine.
A hobby tied too closely to a person can feel impossible to pick up after that person is gone. Holland said it plainly when Simons asked if he still does carpentry: his grandfather had passed away, and the two of them used to do it together. “I used to do it with him,” he said. That was the whole explanation.
He mentioned thinking about picking it up again someday, meaning he still loves it and is genuinely interested, but his life is elsewhere right now. The craft and the desire are still there, but the person he used to do it with is gone, and that’s harder to replace than any tool or workbench.
Most guys have something like this. A project, a pastime, a Sunday ritual that belonged to two people and eventually became one person’s problem to figure out alone. Holland happens to be Spider-Man, but in that moment, he was just a guy who built things with his grandfather and hadn’t quite found his way back to the craft yet.
