Tom Holland Failed His Star Wars Audition For The Most Adorable Reason
These days, Tom Holland is best known for his work with Marvel, bringing in nearly $4 billion in box office revenue through his Spider-Man trilogy. However, before he was tapped to bring Peter Parker to life on the big screen, Holland auditioned to be in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and failed miserably. According to a write-up in Bustle, Holland blew his audition by catching a serious case of the giggles while working alongside a casting director who insisted on delivering audible “beeps” and “boops” from the droid Holland would be acting alongside.
“I remember doing this scene with this lady, bless her, and she was just a drone. So I was doing all of this, like, ‘We gotta get back to the ship!’ And she was going, ‘Bleep, bloop bloop, bleep bloop.’ I just couldn’t stop laughing. I found it so funny.”
Tom Holland on his Star Wars audition
Tom Holland originally told his Star Wars audition story on an episode of the YouTube series Hot Ones, which draws hilarious celebrity interest stories by feeding their guest a series of increasingly spicy chicken wings. While explaining himself to the show’s host, Sean Evans, Holland stated that he felt bad for laughing through his audition but that he couldn’t contain his laughter when working alongside a woman making robot sounds.
The role Tom Holland was auditioning for wound up going to John Boyega, who portrays Finn in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Though the first film in the trilogy, Star Wars: Episode 7 – The Force Awakens, hit the big screen in 2015, Tom Holland wouldn’t go on to become a household name for at least another year when he made his Marvel debut in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Holland’s earliest acting credits date back to small roles spread across the early 2010s before getting his big break with the Disney-owned franchise.
Tom Holland auditioned for the role of Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, losing the role to John Boyega.
As Tom Holland recounted his Star Wars audition, he explained that he’d had quite a few auditions go poorly in his time as a young actor but that this was his worst. In hindsight, the story serves as a funny memory, but Holland assured his Hot Ones interlocutor that his laughter was no laughing matter at the time. Like many of us, Tom Holland fell victim to a fit of inappropriate laughter, with the severity of the moment only serving to make it more difficult to relax and calm down.
Given Tom Holland’s newfound success and fame, he likely never has to audition to get a role ever again. Of course, had Holland actually gotten the Star Wars role, it would have almost certainly conflicted with his subsequent casting as Spider-Man, so his fits of laughter may have ultimately served him in the long run.
Tom Holland losing out on Star Wars worked out for the best, as he’s gone on to be a major part of six blockbuster Marvel films.
In the years since Holland has appeared as Peter Parker in six flagship MCU films and is currently set to be one of the leading Avengers in future phases.
As one of the leading Avengers, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will likely be leading the charge into battle during upcoming outings such as Avengers: The King Dynasty and Avengers: Secret War, which are planned to release in May of 2026 and May of 2027, respectively. Meanwhile, the Star Wars trilogy came to a close with 2019’s Star Wars: Episode 9 – The Rise Of Skywalker, releasing John Boyega to appear in a number of other major projects such as The Woman King and Netflix’s latest original film They Cloned Tyrone.
