Besides being your neighorbood superhero Spider-Man, high school student Peter Peter (Tom Holland) has an ordinary life to lead – helped out by his best friend, Ned, played by Filipino-American actor Jacob Batalon, in Columbia Pictures’ new action-adventure Spider-Man: Homecoming (now showing in Philippine cinemas).
While many of the actors in Spider-Man: Homecoming have experience with the behind-the-scenes demands of promoting an MCU film, Batalon is making his motion picture debut. (Not a bad way to start one’s career.)
He got his first taste last year at Comic-Con, which culminated a long casting process. “The gravity of it didn’t sink in until we went to Comic-Con,” he says. “I could see how much fans love this character and go crazy for him. I’ve never felt an energy like that – and knowing that they support us really made me feel great. The first super hero film I saw was the first Spider-Man and those first films were such a big part of my childhood. It’s hard to explain what it feels like to know that you’re now part of building that story.”