Entertainment

Can Tom Holland Pull Off An American Accent?

by Aramide Tinubu

It's official: Per an announcement Tuesday, English actor Tom Holland is Marvel's newest Spider-Man, and will star in a variety of upcoming films within the MCU beginning in 2017. And, though he doesn't have Avengers status quit yet, Holland certainly has the acting chops to play the wall crawler. But, considering Holland will be the second English actor to portray the legendary character, I have to wonder: Can Holland pull off an American accent?

If you're not familiar with the actor: The 19-year old played the title role in Billy Elliot the Musical at the Victoria Palace Theater in London in 2008, and he was also widely praised for his work in 2012's The Impossible. As Sony Pictures Motion Pictures Group Chairman Tom Rothman said in a press release about the casting,

"For Spidey himself, we saw many terrific young actors, but Tom’s screen tests were special. All in all, we are off to a roaring start.”

As aforementioned, Holland isn't the first English actor to play the role — Garfield also grew up in England. However, considering Peter Parker is from Queens, New York, it's worth wondering what Holland's American accent is going to sound like when he takes on the role.

Though there is no video evidence as of yet of Holland portraying Peter Parker, I'm actually super confident that he won't have any trouble with with the accent. Holland was born and raised in London — but, for his role as Billy Elliot, he had to take on Billy's Northern England dialect — something he did quite flawlessly in a news interview from 2005.

The fact that Holland was able to pull of Billy's accent while singing is even more impressive. Since he's been trained in the theater, I'm certain that he will be able to transform himself into the classic teenage New Yorker character. Though the first film from new Spider-Man series is slated for release on July 28, 2017, it seems like we might not have to wait that long to see Holland in his new role: It's rumored, as Screenrant points out, that Holland's Spider-Man might make his first appearance as Spider-Man in next year's Captain America: Civil War which will be released May 6, 2016.

Holland is the third actor to take on the role since Tobey Maguire first embodied the character in 2002. More recently, Garfield portrayed everyone's favorite web-slinger in The Amazing Spider-Man films between 2012 and 2014.