The New 'Spider Man' Tom Holland Went Undercover At A High School To Americanize Himself And No One Realized
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Halfway through his senior year at The Bronx High School of Science, Arun Bishop received an unexpected request. He was sitting in the principal’s office chatting casually with an adviser when the vice principal approached him with an offer from Marvel Studios. Marvel wanted to send the newest Spider-Man — the London-born actor Tom Holland — to high school so he could better understand his role as the teen Peter Parker. But because Parker is a brilliant tech whiz at the fictional Midtown School of Science and Technology, there was only one place Holland could go.
Marvel wanted Holland to shadow a student who was pursuing a STEM — science, technology, engineering, and math — curriculum similar to what Parker would be studying, and Bishop quickly emerged as a prime candidate. As a senior, Bishop was the captain of the school’s robotics team and was taking high-level science classes.
Because Marvel wanted Holland to get as close to an authentic experience as possible, he had to go undercover. In addition to Bishop, the only other people who would know Holland’s true identity were his teachers and a few members of the administration.
Holland would use an American accent and introduce himself to other students as Bishop’s cousin Ben. Any questions about how he got into Bronx Science without taking the entrance exam would be explained away by saying his father was in the military and recently was stationed in New York.
“He’d ask them: ‘Do you watch Marvel Movies? Who’s your favorite superhero? What do you think of the new Spider-Man actor?'” Bishop said. “It was crazy; nobody recognized him.”
Bishop and Holland did manage to convince one group of girls that Holland was Spider-Man by showing them his ID and having them look him up on their phones. When the girls realized a celebrity was in their midst, they “went a little crazy,” Bishop said.
So I thankfully got to see the new Spider Man movie this weekend and it was easily my favorite of any Spider Man ever made. Everything about it was perfect and Tom Holland absolutely crushed being Peter Parker. So obviously Tom Holland is from the U.K. and went to an all boys school, so playing a kid in an American high school obviously would be a bit out of his comfort zone. He jokingly suggested to the Marvel heads that he go pretend to be a high school student in American for a few days to get the hang of it, and they took him dead seriously and pulled the trigger. They didn’t just send him to any high school. No, they sent him to The Bronx High School of Science which is one of the nerdiest places on the planet with an alumni list that’ll blow your socks off. Eight Nobel Prize winners. Two current House of Representatives. Seven Pulitzer prize winners. Oh and fellow Spider Man/Iron Man actor Jon Favreau (Happy) who Holland deals with the whole movie.
Holland didn’t just sit in on normal classes like PE basketball or wood shop. NOPE. Holland took on Advanced Placement physics; linear algebra and differential equations; experimental engineering; AP calculus AB; AP English literature; and AP microeconomics. It’s pretty hard to believe that not one of these nerds recognized TOM HOLLAND the new SPIDER MAN. These kids don’t play sports, they don’t go outside, they study astrophysics and torrent movies that haven’t even come out yet. They still read comic books and are obsessed with Marvel. I mean I’m the same way, minus the comic books cause I can’t read, but you have to recognize Tom Holland come on now!
I love how he got so bored with his classes that he found some hot girl in the back of his class and tried to convince her he was Spider Man. It’s almost like a real scene in a super hero movie where you try to convince a friend you’re the actual super hero. No fucking chance they believe you no matter how convincing you can be. Oh nog big deal, but I’m about to be one of the most recognizable faces in the country in the coming years. I mean it’s a little suspicious he just showed up out of no where at a prestigious school like Bronx Science which is extremely hard to get into, but they had a decent alibi I guess.
Anyways, go see this movie if you’re into the super hero genre because it was stellar. Without giving away any spoilers they decided to skip the whole background story of Peter Parker which we all know by now and just jumped right into the thick of the movie. We all know how Peter Parker becomes Spider Man, there’s no need to waste 30 minutes of a movie explaining the same story again. The movie is two hours and 15 minutes long and at about an hour in I checked the time on my phone thinking it was over because so much shit had happened. I was shocked, but not in a bad way, because we still had an hour + left of a great movie. I didn’t really trust the decision of the unknown Tom Holland to take over as Spider Man, but right now I can say without a doubt they hit a massive Aaron Judge-type home run.
