'Odyssey' script the best Holland 'ever read'

LOS ANGELES:

With 'The Odyssey' and a new 'Spider-Man' film, next summer looks set to be the summer of Tom Holland—and the famously boyish and ebullient star can hardly contain his excitement.

First up will be Christopher Nolan's epic adaptation of 'The Odyssey,' out mid-July. Holland plays Telemachus, the son of the saga's hero Odysseus and a key character in the Ancient Greek saga.

"The script is the best script I've ever read," Holland, who recently wrapped filming in locations around the Mediterranean, tells AFP. The movie is Nolan's follow-up to 'Oppenheimer,' and again boasts an A-list cast, including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron—and Zendaya, Holland's fiancee.

"Chris [Nolan] is a real collaborator. He knows what he wants... but it is not an environment where you can't pitch ideas or build characters in certain ways," enthuses Holland.

The two Brits have not worked together before, but have plenty in common. Nolan directed the Batman 'Dark Knight' trilogy. They stand alongside Holland's 'Spider-Man' movies among the superhero genre's most successful and beloved movies.

Just days before Holland spoke to AFP, photos circulated of him shooting an action sequence for 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' in Glasgow, with the Scottish city standing in for New York. For Holland, donning the Spidey suit for his seventh overall Marvel movie, it still "feels like the first time."

The film is due out late July, just two weeks after 'The Odyssey.'

Holland's take on Peter Parker — aka Spider-Man — has always stood out from previous versions for its especially playful, youthful energy. Those qualities are also central to 'Never Stop Playing,' a new campaign and short film fronted by Holland for The LEGO Group, which warns that children today feel pressured into growing up too fast.

Holland, 29, says his generation is lucky to have grown up at the dawn of social media, when the technology was less pervasive and destructive than it is now. "By the time my peers are having kids, we'll understand the dangers of social media and kids living in the spotlight."