Sorry, “Saturday Night Live” fans: You probably won’t see Tom Holland swinging into Studio 8H anytime soon.
The “Spider-Man” star has been approached to host the NBC sketch comedy institution several times, he told Amy Poehler on her podcast “Good Hang” this week, but he has turned them down each time. The reason? “I’m heavily dyslexic,” he admitted, and since “SNL” often uses hand-written cue cards to make last-minute changes to the sketches, “I’m just petrified at the concept of, like, trying to read something” live on the air.
Holland added that “I can read fine, but when I have to read out loud… it’s like a mental block, and I can freeze.” He even says that going into a table read for a movie or TV show, “I will really try and highlight everything and learn my lines ahead of time, so that I’m more kind of skimming it than I am reading.”
But he still has the utmost respect for “SNL,” he told Poehler: “I love the show, and I love the idea of having fun and making a fool of yourself in such a fun, creative way. It’s just that thing of the cue cards.” Poehler did try to reassure him that “SNL” has dealt with more difficult hosts in the past: “You have to remember: There have been people that have hosted that have been fully on drugs. So I think you can do it.”
Zendaya has never hosted SNL, either
Tom Holland isn’t the only Marvel superstar to never grace the “Saturday Night Live” stage: His “Spider-Man” co-star (and fiancée) Zendaya has never hosted the show, and neither have Chris Evans or Mark Ruffalo. Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt, though, have both hosted “SNL,” and Scarlett Johansson has actually become the female performer with the most “SNL” hosting gigs, with seven so far. Plus, Robert Downey Jr. was actually an “SNL” cast member, albeit for just one year, during the ill-fated 1985-86 season.
It’s not like Holland is afraid of putting it all out there in front of a live audience: Who could forget his famous lip-sync to Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on “Lip Sync Battle”? He also got his start in live theater, first breaking out as a child actor in the West End production of “Billy Elliot: The Musical.” So maybe it’s just a matter of time before we see him performing live from New York. (Fingers crossed.)
