In Spider-Man: No Coming Home, Peter Parker, Ned Leeds and Michelle “MJ” Jones have officially come of age. Over the course of the trilogy, we’ve seen the characters grow from high school sophomores to Back homeadjusting to their post-blipped lives in Far from homeand prepare for the end of high school by No coming home. (Only for Spider-Man’s unmasking to really, really derail their college plans.) Now, not much time has passed since Tom Holland first donned the spidey costume or Jacob Batalon’s Ned makes his first stint as a guy in the chair. But for actors, the past five years have been life changing. (They are, after all, the stars of the sixth highest grossing film of all time.) To celebrate the latest film, which closes the chapter on the Back home trilogy, the trio sat down and revisited their Spider Man auditions.
And it’s as charming as it sounds.
While holland audition videos have been circulating the net for a long time, it’s really cool to see Jacob Batalon and Zendaya channeling Ned and MJ before it’s official. Of course, watching videos of themselves younger means lots of laughs. And make fun of each other. Revisiting the video capturing a potentially upsetting moment in his life must be incredibly eerie. But certainly easier to do knowing that everything worked pretty well.
Holland, a famous dancer before turning to acting, begins his audition by showing off his gymnastics background with a Spider-Man-worthy backflip, before turning to his inner “all-American” teenager from Queens. Complete with a little Chris Evans breast shot, Not less. Which, of course, the trio can’t help but sneer at.
Meanwhile, Batalon’s audition is downright adorable. For starters, he steps out of frame before bursting into the scene, which screams his commitment. And then there’s the deep breath at the end, dropping character with a polite “Thank you.” It’s easy to see why he caught the attention of the casting team for Ned, and why it paid off so well.
And then, of course, there’s Zendaya. Now an Emmy winner for her role in Euphoria, she was already a fast rising star after years on the Disney Channel, when she auditioned for Michelle. But stay, Back home was his very first feature film. But you’d never know, given how cool and collected his hearing is. Which, to be fair, is how MJ is in the movies. Holland and Batalon, meanwhile, each portray Peter and Ned with the perfect amount of frantic energy. which naturally includes ground to act by hand.
After watching the snippets of their auditions, we have to say they did a pretty stellar job throwing those keys Spider Man roles. We don’t know if we’ve seen the last of them in the MCU. But we certainly hope not. The trio have such incredible chemistry and, as their auditions show, are absolutely perfect in these roles.
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