Dominic Holland: I used to be famous. Now I’m only Spider‑Man’s dad

His father, meanwhile, is 50 years old, and is driving himself up to Edinburgh for his first Fringe run in a decade. He is playing at a 110-seat Free Fringe venue at which he doesn’t charge for tickets, but does have to run to the back of the room at the end of the show to hold out the bucket in which the audience can put their donations as they file out.

It is a mismatch in status, rest assured, that has not gone unnoticed in the Holland household in Kingston upon Thames, where Tom still lived until recently. In fact, Dad has given his comeback show the same name he gave his self-published memoir about his and Tom’s parallel careers: Eclipsed.

Performers, even self-deprecating ones, have egos. So how is it for the award-winning star of Radio 4’s The Small World of Dominic Holland when he gets introduced as “the father of”? He smiles. “It’s fine. I’m expecting it. I’m very relaxed, that’s part of my shtick. I say in the book, if Eddie Izzard had a son who went on to become Spider-Man he could write a book called Eclipsed too. Eddie Izzard is a big arena comedian, but he ain’t a film star. There is no shame in being eclipsed by Tom Holland.”

No real angst lurking behind the mock angst, then? “In terms of my son,” he says, “no. I’d be worried if there were any angst. But there is angst about how hard it is to continue a career in comedy. It is hard as a 50-year-old these days to make a proper income on the comedy circuit. But in terms of my son and his ascent, it’s been glorious. It’s been a thrill. It’s been a wonderful fluke.”

Holland never got paid good money to dress up in spandex, but, that aside, he’s had a fairly good run of it. He was the funny boy in class when he attended Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in west London, but never imagined that he could turn that gift into a career — hence going to university in Leeds to study textiles management, where he met his wife, Nicola, on the same course. Then came an eye-opening trip to the Comedy Store in London, and textiles’ loss was stand-up’s gain. He won the Perrier best newcomer award in Edinburgh in 1993, and was nominated for the main award in 1996, losing out to Dylan Moran. Izzard managed him for a while at that point, after Holland answered his fellow stand-up’s key question to him — “Could you be a world-class comedian?” — with a bashful “yes”.

Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming

CHUCK ZLOTNICK/ COLUMBIA PICTURES-SONY/AP

However, as the decade came to an end Holland started to lose his self-belief. When Tom was still a toddler and he and Nicola had just had twin boys — Sam and Harry, now 18; they also have another son, Paddy, 12 — Holland started to get scared of doing stand-up. “I was knackered. I hit a bit of a wall.” He kept working, but his attempts to become more writer than performer stalled — the novels have never earned him more than “beer money”, and although he sold three screenplays they were not made.

While he was beavering away at staying afloat, doing increasing work on the more lucrative but less visible corporate circuit, Tom’s career happened almost by accident. A teacher at the dance class that he went to suggested that he should audition for Billy Elliot. Holland thought that this was pushing their luck, but they decided to try. When Tom, then eight, did the audition they didn’t think that he was a good enough dancer, but the musical’s director, Stephen Daldry, happened to be in the room, and thought he might have something, says Holland. “He said, ‘We’ll teach him the dancing.’ And after that Tom worked very hard, he’s a very determined little boy, he maxed out on whatever natural talent he had, and then lo and behold started playing Billy. He was brilliant in the role, too.”

Tom stayed in the show for 18 months, but Holland still thought this was just a nice adventure, a one-off. Then the producers of a film called The Impossible — which starred Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts in the true story of a family caught up the 2004 tsunami in Thailand — saw footage of Tom on YouTube discussing Billy Elliot. They gave him the part of McGregor and Watts’s son. Nicola and the boys decamped to Thailand for three months — Holland flew in and out when he could, sometimes at his own expense — but he still doubted that this would be more than a lovely childhood memory.

That’s when — with Tom’s approval — Holland wrote Eclipsed and released it as an ebook. “People have loved it,” he says, “but it’s not been the runaway success I promised my wife it would be.” He laughs. “She’s used to that, ‘When, Dom, when?’ ‘Soon!’ ” He has just republished it as a physical book, with a few updates. “The question I am asked constantly is, ‘How did your son become Spider-Man?’ I say, ‘Buy the bloody book! Ten quid after the show!’ ”

Dominic Holland and his son Tom

BRADLEY PAGE/SOLO SYNDICATION

The Impossible wasn’t a hit, but it got Tom noticed in Hollywood. The work kept coming, in films such as The Lost City of Z and In The Heart of the Sea. And now here he is, playing a 15-year-old high-school student cum masked superhero spinning his web and holding his own opposite co-stars such as Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr.

Does Holland give Tom advice? More to the point, does Tom want that advice? “Most kids don’t, do they? ‘What does dad know?’ ” But yes, he does give Tom advice, particularly on how to deal with fame. “I tell him to be apolitical. I say, ‘You’re not equipped, Tom, you’re too young. Don’t get drawn into this celebrity “what do you think?” thing; what you think is irrelevant, you’re just a kid.’ But he’s very measured. He’s a very grounded boy. I’m not worried about him becoming a mad person.”

What’s more, the Hollands have set up The Brothers Trust, a family charity through which Tom will do all his charitable work. It launched in July, when they auctioned tickets to join Tom for a screening of Spider-Man: Homecoming in London.“Tom has an extraordinary resource now with his fame,” says Holland. “He is going to be well paid, well looked after. It also gives him an opportunity to do some really worthy things. It’s a good thing to do for others, but it’s also valuable for him. It keeps you normal.

“Because Tom is an inordinately lucky boy. He has no right to look like he does, OK? Have you seen his dad? OK, he’s got a good-looking mum, but if he’s going to look like me he ain’t going to be Spider-Man. He’s very blessed and I say to him, ‘Tom, all this is bollocks. You can do it, Tom, but don’t believe your talent.’

“He is talented, of course he is talented, but he’s no more talented than a lot of kids who just didn’t get that chance. We are too quick to tell ourselves that movie stars are special people.”

Can Holland trace the altruism behind The Brothers Trust to being a practising Catholic? After all, there are almost as few of those on the comedy circuit as there are practising superheroes. “Well, who’d admit to it? It’s such career death now. But no, I’m not an evangelist, I just say to my boys, ‘Going to Mass is just a nice way to punctuate the week, just a nice way to sit down and say how lucky we are.’

“I’m not like most comics,” says Holland. “I met my wife at 19, I’m not really from the comedy world. I’m just a funny bloke. And I think our family life has impacted on Tom and his brothers more than anything else. He has a very secure family to come home to. I think he appreciates that.”

Yes, Holland knows that he is helping his marketability by talking about his son, in interviews and on stage (although he points out that Tom is just one of the topics in his show). “I’d be mad not to, because nobody else can, it’s a unique hook. I am 50 now, haven’t been on television for years, the movie is out, it ticks all the boxes.”

Last month Holland headlined a gig in London on a Saturday night. He earned £150. Nice work when you’re in your mid-twenties, not enough to get by on when you’ve got four boys to support. Well, no, OK, one 12-year-old schoolboy to support, one 18-year-old (Sam) who plans to study drama at university, another 18-year-old (Harry) who is a would-be film-maker going around the world with his big brother making the videos for his Instagram feed.

Holland knows that this is his chance to remind the comedy world he still exists. He also knows that having Spider-Man for a son is a card that he can probably play only once. However, he has rediscovered his love of comedy, and talks bullishly about his set. “I can make a room full of people laugh, I can make them laugh out loud. I’m as good as I ever was.” He would like to be a “destination comic” again, but knows that won’t happen thanks to his son’s name any more than his son got where he is because of his father’s name.

He never saw any of this coming. “And it quite suits me that I’m not famous. I find it quite unattractive famous people making their children famous. I mean, there’s no way I made Tom a star. I can’t get myself arrested, let alone say, ‘Hey, Marvel? It’s Dominic Holland on the phone. I’ve got something for you.’ ”
Dominic Holland: Eclipsed is at the Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh (free, non-ticketed), August 5-27. thebrotherstrust.org