Tom Holland is taking a step back.
The 27-year-old actor has revealed that he has decided to take a year off from acting.
He explained that his decision was due to his new series, The Crowded Room, which he found to be very challenging to film on multiple levels. He said that because of his role in the project, he had to delve into emotions that he had never experienced in his life. He added that on top of that, he was under an “extra level of pressure” as executive producer on the series.
He revealed:
“The show did break me. There did come a time where I was sort of like ‘I need to have a break.’
I disappeared, I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach and lay low, and not I’m taking a year off.”
Tom shared that the break was directly because of how difficult the show was on him. He went on to say that the ideas and themes of The Crowded Room are very important, particularly with what many people are currently dealing with:
“I just really agreed that it was time to tell the story about mental health — mental health that is brought on by trauma. And educate some people into how crazy it can be and how your mind is so powerful — it can work for good, and it can work for bad — and it just really resonated with me.
Most importantly, I’m hoping that [audiences] feel like they are somewhat educated in a topic that has this stigma, that we do need to change, we do need to talk about the powers of mental health. And hopefully this show can be a stepping stone in the right direction.”
Tom also spoke about how he hopes the psychological thriller will impact viewers:
“I hope that like me they can get the same education I got into how impressive the human mind is and to how far we can go in order to survive. I hope the fans come along for the ride we’ve laid out for them. There is a mystery with puzzle pieces. You can put it together yourself or you can just be along for the ride.
I’m going to be very present online. I’m going to speak to fans and ask them what they think and see if they figured it out.”
