Oh, what a difference a couple of inches can make when you’re a superhero in Hollywood. No one knows that better than Peter Parker himself, Tom Holland, whose “Spider-Man” leading lady, Zendaya, explained how a stunt landed differently because of their heights.
The pair sat down for an interview on “The Graham Norton Show,” where the British host asked about the stunts in the upcoming Marvel release “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which the actress has mentioned in other interviews that their height difference made stunts more difficult.
“Well, you see, there’s a particular stunt — I don’t know if it’s in this — but he, Spider-Man, swings us on top of a bridge, and he places me there,” the 5-foot-10-inch actress said, as a photo of Spider-man and MJ flying through the air off the bridge pops on screen. “He’s supposed to, you know, gently rest MJ on the bridge and walk away from her.”
“Because of our height difference, obviously, if we’re on the same point-,” she began. Holland interjected to clarify, “we were attached.” The actress continued, “I would land before him. My feet, obviously, hit the ground before he does. So … what would happen?”
Holland, who is 5 feet 10 inches all, then took over to finish the story.
“Well, it’s called a bottom mark, isn’t it? And the bottom mark is to basically — it’s a thing that they do in stunts that is basically designed to stop you shattering your kneecaps,” he said.
“So Zendaya would land — and I’m the superhero. I’m supposed to look cool — she would land and then I would sort of land like this and my feet would swing from underneath me and then she would catch me like this,” he said, illustrating his not-so heroic landing. “And they’d be like, ‘Cut!’”
“You were actually very lovely about it,” Zendaya said. “You were like ‘Oh my gosh, thank you.”
“It’s so nice to be caught for a change,” Holland said to laughs from the audience.
You can watch the video here or above. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” swings into theaters Dec. 17.