GQ Presents Fresh Looks for Tom Holland as Mr. Zendaya Coleman

Last November GQ magazine presented actor Tom Holland in a new light, that of Mister Zendaya.

Zendaya:

“Anytime I’ve ever watched him work, he does it 150 percent. It’s incredible to watch.”

GQ:

It was from his older peers that Holland learned both his craft and how to navigate fame, which arrived not in a slow accumulation but in one disorienting rush. Suddenly he was studying for a master’s degree in how to stay on the rails, from actors who in some cases had fallen off and found a way back. Holland latched on to every potential mentor, sucking everything in. “Some told me, ‘You should go out and buy a Ferrari and live in Malibu and live the high life.’ Some [would] say, ‘I wouldn’t do interviews with chat shows if you don’t want to,’ ” he says. “I’ve kind of found a middle ground.” (He bought an electric Porsche.) He said yes to everything—the press tours, the TV appearances, the YouTube stunts. By 21, he had his entire career arc planned out, in 2017 telling Interview magazine in response to questions posed by Zendaya, “The 20-year goal is to be a film director. The 15-year goal is to win an Oscar.”

In the middle of all that, he was growing up, trying to be a normal person, or as close to normal as one can be inside the strange crucible of fame. “The ages between 15 and 21 are when you figure out who you’re going to be,” he says. “When everyone’s telling you that you’re the best thing in the world, you can grow up and believe that.” He found companionship in actors his own age, particularly his Spider-Man costars Jacob Batalon and Zendaya; Zendaya, in particular, became his guide to his new reality. “Having her in my life was so instrumental to my sanity,” he says. “She is so good at being the role model for young guys and girls. When anyone comes up, like, ‘Can I have a picture?,’ it’s never a bad time. Whereas my initial reaction was: ‘Why are you talking to me? Leave me alone.’ ”

Zendaya taught him that fame is work too. So he learned to smile for every picture, hug every fan, do the meet and greets at Disneyland. To always be on. An example: Just recently he was walking in London, when a group of guys started following him and taking pictures. “Something had happened in my life and it really put me in a bad mood,” he says. “I was just trying to keep my head together, and I turned around and told them to get lost.” A reasonable person might think this a fair response to being stalked by strangers. But after a few yards, Holland turned around and apologized. “I have to remind myself that being Spider-Man is more of a responsibility than just having a job,” he says later. “There are kids out there who are bullied at school who don’t fit in, and Spider-Man is their fucking go-to guy, you know? And at the moment I’m that guy.”

But the funny thing about fame is that just as you start to find your dreams coming true, so, too, can nightmares. And so it was this summer, when pictures emerged in the tabloid press of Holland and Zendaya in a car in L.A., kissing. It’s a small thing, a kiss. And ordinarily, two 20-somethings in a relationship embracing at a stoplight would remain what it is, a moment of intimacy between two people. Only in this case, that kiss was instantly beamed around the world, to be dissected in reaction videos, “relationship timelines,” and Entertainment Tonight. (Page Six: “Zendaya, Tom Holland finally confirm they’re dating with steamy car makeout.” As if they had any choice.) Holland’s private life had been in the press before, but this was different. Holland’s and Zendaya’s fans had long obsessed over whether the pair were together (“tom holland and zendaya flirting for 8 minutes straight”: 1.5 million views). Some argued it must be a publicity stunt. “One of the downsides of our fame is that privacy isn’t really in our control anymore, and a moment that you think is between two people that love each other very much is now a moment that is shared with the entire world,” Holland says. He has said very little publicly about the relationship, and you sense it’s something he’s still navigating, trying to work out how much to give. “I’ve always been really adamant to keep my private life private, because I share so much of my life with the world anyway,” he says. “We sort of felt robbed of our privacy.”

You weren’t ready to talk about it.

“I don’t think it’s about not being ready. It’s just that we didn’t want to.”

Holland knows that he’ll soon be on a global press tour, facing endless questions about it. “It’s not a conversation that I can have without her,” he says. “You know, I respect her too much to say… This isn’t my story. It’s our story. And we’ll talk about what it is when we’re ready to talk about it together.”

“It was quite strange and weird and confusing and invasive,” Zendaya tells me later, by phone. “The equal sentiment [we both share] is just that when you really love and care about somebody, some moments or things, you wish were your own.… I think loving someone is a sacred thing and a special thing and something that you want to deal with and go through and experience and enjoy amongst the two people that love each other.”