Florence Pugh credits Tom Holland for her appearance in this year’s mega-hit Spider Man: Brand-New Day.
The Oscar nominee visited The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday, where she and host Jimmy Fallon discussed her role in the latest Spider-Man film. Pugh said she credits the movie’s star for her being featured in the film.
“This all happened because of Tom,” she said, explaining that Holland cited her as an actor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe he’d like to work with on another Spider-Man entry.
“Years ago, when I just kind of started my relationship with Marvel and Black Widow had come out, my Yelena wasn’t as obviously big as all of the other big superheroes,” she said. “He, on the red carpet of his previous movie, when someone said, ‘Who do you want to be in the next movie with? Do you want to be with Thor?’ I don’t remember the superheroes, but they were all massive superheroes, and he said, ‘No, actually, I want to do it with Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena.’”
At the 2021 premiere for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Holland told Entertainment Tonight, “I want to work with Florence Pugh. She’s amazing, she’s so good in [Black Widow], all the movies that she’s done. I think she’s fantastic, so I think a really cool Spider-Man, Black Widow movie would be a fun little twist.”
Pugh said after Holland made those comments, “fans were then so excited about the idea of it, and that started the ball rolling.”
A similar but different fan experience occurred for Pugh’s Brand New Day co-star Sadie Sink. Also on The Tonight Show, the upcoming X-Men actress told Fallon that she saw fan speculation she’d be cast in the most recent Spider-Man film, and somewhat found out she’d actually be in the movie due to those theories.
“I found out through online theories. Like, before I got cast in Spider-Man, like, there was speculation online that said, ‘Sadie Sink is going to be in the new Spider-Man,’” she explained. “I was like, ‘Hmm? I am?’ And sure enough, two days later, they asked me to do it. So yeah, those theories, there’s sometimes some truth to it.”
Starring Holland, Zendaya, Sink and Jon Bernthal, Spider Man: Brand-New Day has become the highest-grossing movie ever at the domestic box office with more than $950 million; it also stands at No. 3 on the all-time worldwide chart with $2.49 billion.
Amid its success, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Monday that a theatrical rerelease featuring new footage is in the works from Sony Pictures.
Pugh starred in Thunderbolts for Marvel last year, expanding on the presence of her character Yelena Belova. She will continue her MCU streak later this year with the Dec. 18 release of Avengers: Doomsday.
