Tom Holland Says ‘Crowded Room’ Made Him Take Year Off Acting: ‘The Show Did Break Me’

If you miss Tom Holland on the big screen in the coming year, blame The Crowded Room. Marvel’s Spider-Man revealed that the Apple TV+ series took so much out of him, it prompted his break from acting to care for his mental health.

Holland stars as Danny Sullivan in the drama in addition to executive producing. Danny is loosely based on “The Campus Rapist” Billy Milligan, the man at the center of a highly publicized court case in 1970s Ohio. Milligan was arrested for the robbery, kidnapping, and rape of three women on Ohio State University’s campus. He was the first defendant found not guilty on the basis of dissociative identity disorder. He subsequently spent eight years in jails and psychiatric hospitals.

Playing Danny required Holland to explore “certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before,” he told ExtraTV, noting that his producer duties added an “extra level of pressure.”

“I loved the learning curve of becoming a producer,” he went on. “I’m no stranger to hard work, I’ve always lived by this idea that hard work is good work. I really enjoyed it but then again, the show did break me.”

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“There did come a time when I was sort of, ‘I need to have a break,'” he continued. “I disappeared. I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach and lay low. And I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was. I am excited to see how it turns out. I feel like our hard work wasn’t in vain.”

“It was a tough time, for sure,” Holland added.

How is he spending his time off? “I’ve done a little bit of traveling,” the star shared. “I had an amazing time. I’ve been seeing my family, seeing my friends. I’ve been playing golf. I’ve been going to the garden centre and buying plants and doing my best to keep them alive. I’ve just been trying to be a regular bloke from Kingston and just relax.”

After a drama like The Crowded Room (and years as a Marvel star), relaxation has certainly been earned.

The Crowded Room is set in Manhattan in the summer of 1979. When Holland’s Danny is arrested for a shocking crime, an unlikely investigator (Amanda Seyfried‘s Rya) must solve the mystery behind it.

The drama also stars Emmy Rossum, Sasha Lane, Will Chase, Lior Raz, Sam Vartholomeos, Elijah Jones, and more. The series premiered on Friday, June 9 with its first three episodes. New episodes air weekly on the streaming platform.

The Crowded Room, Fridays, Apple TV+