Though Tom Holland loves acting, he pretty much hates everything that comes with it.
“I really do not like Hollywood, it is not for me,” he told Jay Shetty on his On Purpose podcast.
“The business really scares me,” Holland continued. “I understand that I’m a part of that business, and I enjoy my kind of interactions with it. But, that said, I am always looking for ways to kind of remove myself from it, to kind of just live as normal a life as possible.”
Holland also told Shetty that appearing on his podcast is a “very rare thing for me to do.”
He shared that an “ongoing thought” he’s had during his career is, “don’t lose yourself.”
“I’ve seen so many people come before me and lose themselves, and I’ve had friends that I’ve grown up with that aren’t friends of mine anymore, because they’ve lost themselves to this business," Holland added.
The Spider-Man star added that his main focuses are the things that make him happy: his family, friends, and interests like carpentry, golf, and his mother’s charity. “That’s the stuff that I should protect,” he said.
As for his relationship with Zendaya—that’s completely off-limits to the public.
“My relationship is the thing that I keep most sacred,” the 27-year-old said. “I don’t talk about it. I try my best to keep it as private as possible. We both feel very strongly that that is the healthiest way for us to move on as a couple. So I do try to keep as removed from [Hollywood] as possible. You’ll never see me at an award show that I don’t have to be at. I’m never going to a red carpet event that I’m not in the film of. I don’t want the attention when I don’t need it.”
Holland also discussed his sobriety with Shetty, explaining that he noticed he had a drinking problem after Christmas 202, when he did the dry January challenge. At that moment, he realized the grip that drinking had on him.
“I was really, really struggling. I started to really worry that maybe I had an alcohol problem,” he said. He continued to remain sober for another six months.
“By the time I had got to June 1st, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life. … I had such better mental clarity," he said. "I felt healthier, I felt fitter. And I just sort of said to myself, like, 'Why? Why am I enslaved to this drink? Why am I so obsessed by the idea of having this drink?'"