It’s been 10 years since Tom Holland was cast in Captain America: Civil War and 15 since he began his actual acting career. Now time has passed and he’s tackled more and more roles with American accents, he admitted he’s started to forget how to sound like himself anytime he’s mic’d up or in front of a camera.
Listen, as a fellow accent shaker I get it, but I was a little surprised when Holland brought up losing his accent while acting during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show a while back. Tom Hanks was trying to explain to Graham Norton how lessons in acting work. During this bit, he asked Holland to say “Please, I need some more coffee” in as many ways as possible. As it turned out, Holland did it half a dozen times — all in an American accent.
When fellow coach sitters including Hanks were surprised, the actor also admitted he basically only acts in US accents now thanks to having done them so much for his varying film roles.
I can’t act in an English accent anymore. I did a commercial the other day as Tom Holland and I was like, ‘Hey guys, how ya doing?’ [in a New York accent]. They’re like, ‘You’re from Kingston, by the way.'
There are entire videos and Reddit threads devoted to what Tom Holland is doing with his voice in everything from Uncharted to Cherry and his Spidey gigs . The general consensus seems to be that his US accent ain’t half bad, but my favorite take on it was from the Redditer who felt he was “doing a Marty McFly impression.” Now I kinda can’t unsee it.
I can’t blame him either. As someone who grew up right by Kentucky, I really worked to contain both the southern and midwestern drawl that meld together in that area. (Though you’ll still hear me dropping the letter “g” on the end of words left and right, and my husband consistently thinks I'm saying "in" when I'm saying "and.") Still, I know when someone is actively looking to change something with their voice, they may look at media as a resource, and it wouldn't surprise me if Back to the Future was a Holland guiding stone. It’s a good movie!
It could also be wishful thinking from fans who have seen Holland in that Back To The Future deepfake, too. Yet I think at the end of the day, all that matters is that Holland’s accent is convincing and he can slip in and out of it at will. It’s the latter part that maybe seems to be the trouble.
He’ll have to slip into the US accent soon though, as his upcoming Marvel movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day is set to begin filming later this summer. It’s worth pointing out, however, that Holland was not one of the chairs chair reveals during Marvel’s big stream earlier this year, so he may be able to slip into his normal voice for a while.
Tom Holland said years ago that when he’s done playing Spider-Man he’d love to go travel the world and do all kinds of dangerous and adventurous sports he has been unable to do for fear of hurting himself before playing Peter Parker. He’s also said more recently he’d be interested in starting a family, but no matter where his life goes in the future, he most certainly has a solid American accent to fall back on.
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