Tom Holland’s acting hiatus may seem bizarre to regular people – but it’s a good thing

The ‘Spider-Man’ star is stepping back from Hollywood after a particularly gruelling role on Apple TV+’s ‘The Crowded Room’. It’s about time more actors started prioritising their wellbeing over career momentum, writes Louis Chilton

Gap year: Tom Holland is embarking on a year away from the film industry (AFP/Getty)

Bon voyage, Spider-Man. Earlier this week, Tom Holland announced that he is taking a step back from acting for a year, after filming a particularly taxing role in Apple TV+’s new psychological drama The Crowded Room. The 27-year-old actor is best known for his breezy turn as Peter Parker in the Marvel universe, but has previously branched out into darker material in films such as The Devil All the Time and Cherry. The Crowded Room, however, proved a step too far, with Holland claiming this week that the role, of a man involved in a shooting in the late 1970s, had “broken” him. So he’s taking it easy: travelling; seeing friends and family; playing golf; going to the garden centre (“I’m buying plants and doing my best to keep them alive”); being, in his words, just a “regular bloke from Kingston”.

Holland is not the only big-name actor to embark on a self-imposed sabbatical. Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston revealed this week that he plans to stop acting in 2026 and move to France with his wife, the actor Robin Dearden. “For the last 24 years, Robin has led her life holding onto my tail,” Cranston said. “I want to level that out. She deserves it.” Ryan Gosling, meanwhile, is soon to return to screens in Barbie, having recently undertaken a four-year break from acting; he told an interviewer that the fallow period was prompted by his two young children, and his need to be present as a father during their early years. In today’s interview with The Independent, actor Josh Hartnett opened up about his efforts to shun stardom at the peak of his fame. “Being famous is a full-time job,” he said. “I had paparazzi chasing me, people approaching me… You weren’t allowed to really be yourself. Plenty of actors have found that work-life balance, but I found it hard and I really sought it. People thought I was nuts.”

It can be hard, for those of us without the financial means to sit back and stop working, to sympathise with these people. Alright for some, you’re probably thinking. Oftentimes, the mere mention of the struggles of the rich and famous is enough to have everyone rummaging for the tiny violins. But actors are also people, and for decades they have been people who are, more often than not, working long, unsociable hours, in locations far away from those closest to them, sometimes on projects that involve distressing subject matter. No wonder, then, that Hollywood is littered with stories of bad fathers, bad husbands, and straight-up bad people; for this to improve, actors need to start prioritising their own wellbeing.

But that’s easier said than done. More than most other industries, the film industry operates by the rules of momentum. Once actors start building a critical reputation and/or a popular following, they typically begin to take on bigger and bigger jobs, with mounting frequency. It is not unusual for an actor to have three or more projects out within any given year, and the film shoots are only part of the job. There are the press tours, the red carpet appearances. Actors often do not stop working for any great length of time; life becomes an endless succession of plane trips and luxury hotels. We can assume such a life is comfortable but not necessarily enjoyable, frenetic but not meaningful. I’m not sure quite how possible it is for Holland to ever return to being “some bloke from Kingston” – he cannot walk down most streets in the world without being recognised – but the very fact he is striving to do so speaks volumes. If A-list celebrities are unable to dictate their own terms when it comes to work, what chance do the rest of us have?

It should be pointed out that, within the spectrum of well-known actors, Holland, Cranston and Gosling are all at the more privileged end. Last year, Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney spoke out about the financial realities of life as an actor in her position. “I want to have a family,” she said, before detailing her regular outgoing expenses: a lawyer, agents, and a business manager. “If I wanted to take a six-month break, I don’t have income to cover that.” The fact is, acting is in essence a freelance career. Even before you start to take into account missed opportunities and the pressures of “career momentum” – the constant impetus to make hay while the proverbial sun is out – it’s never quite so simple as just stepping back.

It can be hard, sometimes, as audiences, not to feel cheated in some small way when a gifted actor steps away from the limelight. This is especially true of those who retire permanently – the Daniel Day-Lewises and Gene Hackmans of the world. No matter how much you tell yourself it is their decision, that it is in fact healthy and important for actors to call time on their own working lives, it’s hard not to lament the void these actors leave, the great performances that will never come to be. This is also true of filmmakers. Fans of Quentin Tarantino are currently wracked by the prospect of his imminent retirement, with the Pulp Fiction director having long vowed to call it quits after making 10 films. It would be a shame, of course, but there’s something quietly powerful about stepping back like that.

Holland in ‘The Crowded Room’ (Apple TV+)

Because, after all, there is more to life than films. Too often, artists’ whole lives are consumed by their careers, to the detriment of their personal relationships. Succession’s Jeremy Strong, one of the most brilliant method actors working today, seemed to stoke concern among his co-stars over the impact his notoriously intense process was having on his wellbeing. (“Jeremy said one time that doing a role should cost you something,” recalled co-star Alan Ruck.) An intense workload is by no means a problem exclusive to the film industry, but the unusual nature of creative work – the perceived glamour of it, the way that labour is processed into entertainment – means it is embraced there, maybe even expected, in a way that it isn’t elsewhere. Perhaps, if more performers took Holland’s approach, we’d all move on from the idea of the messy, tortured artist. And there’d be more opportunities for up-and-comers on screen as a result. Everyone wins. So next time Jeremy Strong gets offered, say, the role of a self-flagellating monk in some harrowing religious epic, maybe he’d do well to put down the cat o’ nine tails – and go buy a plant instead.

‘The Crowded Room’ is streaming on Apple TV+