Call it the first official team-up between Thor and Spider-Man.
As Tom Holland was circling the part of Spider-Man, being rebooted by Marvel and Sony, he enlisted his “In the Heart of the Sea” co-star Chris Hemsworth to hammer studio execs with a personal recommendation.
“I emailed him while I was auditioning for the film and said, ‘So can you maybe put in a good word for me?'” the 17-year-old British actor told the Daily News while promoting “In the Heart of the Sea.”
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Thor gave his “Aye.”
From their bonding over months on a boat and starving themselves for the period drama opening Dec. 11, Hemsworth felt that Holland had enough great responsibility to be worthy of all the great power that came with the role, previously played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.
“I called the guys at Marvel when they were casting (Spider-Man) and I heard he was in the final handful of guys and said, ‘Look for what it’s worth you’re not going to meet a harder working more appreciative kind of guy,'” recalls Hemsworth, who will soon reprise his role as Marvel’s resident thunder god in “Thor: Ragnarok.”
“I was so blown away by his sort of attitude and work ethic and how good he was,” adds Hemsworth. “But then I said to Tom, ‘I’ve told them that, so don’t prove me wrong.'”
This was an important role for Holland — previously best known for the 2012 drama about the Boxing Day tsunami, “The Impossible” — and not just because of the hulk-sized paycheck.
“I used to love the TV shows and I used to dress up relentlessly as Spider-Man,” he says. “Two years ago, I went to a fancy dress party as Spider-Man. That goes to show how to show how touched I am by this (character).”
But it was an even more important part for the two studios. In the blockbuster deal, Sony maintains rights to standalone Spider-Man movies, but the character will be rebooted with the more popular Marvel shared cinematic universe in next year’s “Captain America: Civil War.”
Holland fits the studios’ desire to land a real teenager to play the teen Peter Parker. He won over fans by posting Instagram videos of himself performing backflips after landing the part.
“You can get stunt people to do that and we will get stunt people to do that,” Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige told The News in July, “but that was just an added bonus, that the best actor for the part could also happen to do (physical moves) like that.”
Holland, though, seems more worried about nailing Parker’s Queens accent than he is about the action scenes.
“I’m going to be spending some time here to get the accent down,” says Holland. “And I’ll be eating a lot of pizza.”
