The last time we checked in on Tom Holland, he said he was taking a year off from acting. The reason he gave for his hiatus was that filming the Apple TV+ show The Crowded Room “broke him.” I predicted then, before there were many reviews, that the show sounded like a dud and that Tom was miscast based on the trailer. Now that more reviews are in, my suspicions were correct. It has a 48% on Metacritic and the consensus is that it tries to withhold a “twist” that you can see coming if you just do a rudimentary Google about the project, or just read the context that every news outlet publishes alongside descriptions of the show. It’s also apparently quite slow. Anyway, Tom is still promoting The Crowded Room and appeared in a video on the Unilad YouTube channel. I think Unilad is kind of similar to Buzzfeed? I don’t know it that well. He talked about the negative reviews and how he’s used to disappointment because of his football (soccer) allegiances. He also mentioned what he hopes people get out of watching the show and advocated for mental health awareness.
Tom Holland is hopeful his TV miniseries “The Crowded Room” will touch fans despite negative reviews.
The 27-year-old actor appeared on Unilad’s “Get a Job” series Friday where he addressed the Apple TV+ psychological thriller, which he starred in and executive produced.
“It’s no secret that my show has been so horribly reviewed,” he said.
Holland’s character Danny Sullivan in the series, based on the 1981 novel “The Minds of Billy Milligan,” is arrested after a shooting at Rockefeller Center in 1979.
Indie Wire graded the show a C-, Variety called it “empty” and CNN said the series yielded “pretty mediocre-to-bad results.” The Rotten Tomatoes score at publish is 31%.
Holland said on Unilad that he learned how to be “very resilient” as a result of being a Tottenham Hotspur fan. The soccer team has never won the Premiere League.
The actor explained that because he learned resilience, he’s far more concerned with what viewers learn from watching “The Crowded Room” over how it stacks up in reviews.
“I think that the message of the show, which can speak to so many different issues is that asking for help should be something that we as a society celebrate. It’s an act of bravery,” he said.
The joke about Tottenham Hotspur was cute, but he also completely brings up how horribly reviewed his show is, when the interviewer is just asking him about football. Perhaps they planned that segue ahead of time but if they didn’t, Tom is out here just telling people “my new show was reviewed horribly!” That…probably doesn’t make people want to watch it. Not sure how effective that is as promo. Nevertheless I hope Tom doesn’t let the bad reviews get to him. It’s not all on him that the show wasn’t a hit. I think he really was just miscast and that the script had some problems. I do hope, however, that he chooses his next project wisely, and picks something that plays to his strengths. I’m not saying he has to always be a loveable goofball in the mold of Peter Parker but his character has to have a certain level of lightness and charm. He’d be so great in a romcom if we still had those.
Also in that video, Tom reveals (with a distinctively proud look) that he fixed Zendaya’s door once, early in their relationship. He says she was impressed, which is quite sweet. Tom is a trained carpenter, which is very useful. I’m wondering what exactly he fixed. Did he tighten up the hinges? Did he have to change out the door sweep? Swap out a strike plate? Anyway it’s just a cute little story. I see why people are obsessed with them as a couple, they’re very adorable.
photos credit: Apple Press and Getty
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