Why Tom Holland Is Taking a Year off From Acting

Tom Holland‘s latest role was so intense he decided to take a break from acting altogether. He stars in The Crowded Room, a dark psychological thriller focusing on mental health and trauma. Holland revealed to Extra TV that the new Apple TV+ series led him to take a year off because it was so “difficult.” He described what he’s been doing during his free time.

“I’ve been seeing my family. I’ve been seeing my friends. I’ve been playing golf. I’ve been, you know, going to the garden center and buying plants and doing my best to keep them alive and all that sort of stuff. I’ve just been trying to be, you know, regular bloke from Kingston and just relax.”

“I just was terrified by the idea of playing this character, and for me that’s a really good thing, so I said yes,” Holland said of his decision to play Danny Sullivan, who is loosely based on Billy Milligan, an infamous real-life criminal. “I just was really excited by the challenge of bringing him to life. You know, understanding the responsibility of telling a story like this, hearing the message from Akiva [Goldsman], hearing what he wanted to try and achieve, and just feeling really aligned with him,” he said.

Drawing from Daniel Keyes’ nonfiction book The Minds of Billy Milligan, The Crowded Room explores a young man’s arrest for a shocking crime and the unlikely investigator that must solve the mystery.

Tom was also an executive producer on the drama, which he “really enjoyed.” However, the stress of the role ultimately led him to pause his career for a year. “It was it was a tough time for sure. We were exploring certain emotions that I have definitely never experienced before, and then on top of that being a producer dealing with the day-to-day kind of problems that come with any film set added that extra level of pressure,” the actor said.

“I love the learning curve of becoming a producer,” Holland continued. “I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ve always sort of lived by this idea that hard work is good work. I really enjoyed it, but then again, the show did break me. There did come a time where I was sort of like, ‘I need to have a break.’ I disappeared. I went to Mexico for a week and had some time on a beach. And I’m now taking a year off, and that is a result of how difficult this show was.”

Holland expressed the hope that the show would spark more mental health discussions. “Most importantly, I’m hoping that [audiences] feel like they are somewhat educated in a topic that has this stigma, that we do need to change, we do need to talk about the powers of mental health. And hopefully this show can be a stepping stone in the right direction.”

He also talked about how playing Danny Sullivan helped him grow as a person in a way that no other role could. “I feel very confident in my capabilities as an actor. I feel like I can handle confrontation better. I feel like I can deal with certain situations that I think before would have really set me off, and now I just take it in my stride. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot, perhaps more so in the 10 months of making this show than I have in my entire career,” Holland explained. “It definitely feels like the beginning of the next chapter, and I feel really good. I’m really happy.” The Crowded Room will premiere on Apple TV+ June 9.