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Tom Holland is 'taking a year off' after being emotionally exhausted by The Crowded Room

Tom Holland is 'taking a year off' after being emotionally exhausted by The Crowded Room

Tom Holland has fought Thanos as Peter Parker and hunted treasure as Nathan Drake, but says his most exhausting role yet is Danny Sullivan in The Crowded Room.

"We were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before," Holland said in a new Extra interview. "And then on top of that, being a producer dealing with the day-to-day kind of problems that come with any film set added that extra level of pressure." He adds, "I really enjoyed it, but then again, the show did break me."

After juggling the emotionally taxing role with his duties as a producer, Holland said he is "taking a year off." The actor added that he has spent his downtime "trying to be, you know, regular bloke from Kingston and just relax."

The 10 episode miniseries begins with Holland playing an anti-social teen arrested after a shooting at Rockefeller Center and through a series of revelations, delves into the complicated inner life of his mysterious character. The show is loosely based on the real crimes of Billy Milligan, who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.

Tom Holland in "The Crowded Room," Episode 1. premiering June 9, 2023 on Apple TV+.
Tom Holland in "The Crowded Room," Episode 1. premiering June 9, 2023 on Apple TV+.

Stephanie Mei-Ling/Apple TV+ Tom Holland in 'The Crowded Room'

The star says since production wrapped on the series he's been "seeing my family. I've been seeing my friends. I've been playing golf. I've been, you know, going to the garden center and buying plants and doing my best to keep them alive and all that sort of stuff."

Holland's break from acting has been a long time coming. The Crowded Room star previously told EW that after going from Uncharted to Spider-Man: No Way Home, he intended to take time off — until Akiva Goldsman piqued his interest with the psychological thriller based on the 1981 novel The Minds of Billy Milligan.

"I'm no stranger to the physical aspects of the job doing the whole action-movie thing," Holland said. "But the mental aspect, it really beat me up and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality."

The actor recalled a moment, after nine months of filming, where he struggled to detach from his character. "I was seeing myself in him, but in my personal life," Holland told EW. "I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking, like, 'I'm going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character.' And, obviously, we were mid-shooting, so I decided not to… It was unlike anything I've ever experienced before."

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