If you were a real life superhero, you’d have to expect a certain amount of clobbering whenever you face off against a supervillain. When you’re actor playing a superhero, however, you expect to go punch-free thanks to the use of stunt men and clever camera angles. That’s not always the case, though, and due to an on-set mishap, Spidey himself, Tom Holland, received a wallop to the face while filming Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The actor revealed the incident in a recent interview with GQ. Though it might sound like it was quite serious, Holland seems to be in good spirits about it and laughs it off as all his own fault.
“Yeah, I got punched in the face. I was supposed to dodge it and I just didn’t see it coming. [The stuntman] cracked me in the head. He had this massive gauntlet in his hand, a big metal fist type thing, and he punched me in the face so hard, like you wouldn’t believe. But it looks great! I hope they use it. It’s one of those things where you stand up and you’re angry, like, ‘What the hell, man? You punched me in the head!’ Then you realize it’s entirely your fault.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the actor talks about how difficult it is to see while wearing the Spidey mask. Due to having a head that, in his own words, is “weirdly egg-shaped,” Holland wore a helmet beneath the fabric. Apparently, this meant he “could only see about five feet in front of me, with no peripheral vision.”
Finally, as we all know, Tom Holland is famously a lifelong fan of Spider-Man, and he reiterates his long-standing connection with the character in the interview, mentioning that he went to a party five years ago dressed as the webslinger. “It wasn’t a fancy dress party,” he explains. “It was just a regular party. And I was there as Spider-Man.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming swings into theatres on July 7th.