Amy Pascal tried to prevent another real-life romance from developing inside the Spider-Man franchise. Tom Holland and Zendaya did not follow her advice.
During a recent interview tied to Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the producer revisited the warning she gave the actors after they were cast as Peter Parker and MJ.
Holland and Zendaya eventually became a couple and quietly married, leaving Pascal to acknowledge that her guidance has repeatedly failed with the franchise’s leading stars.
Pascal Did Not Expect Holland and Zendaya to Marry
View this post on Instagram
When Pascal was asked whether she expected Holland and Zendaya’s relationship to end in marriage, she answered directly. “No,” she told Variety. “I say this to all of them, and no one ever listens to me.”
Pascal did not express any lingering concern about the couple. She smiled and added, “I think they’re pretty happy together.” The producer’s response gave a new ending to a story she first discussed publicly while promoting Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021.
She Spoke to Them Separately After They Were Cast
Pascal told The New York Times that she approached Holland and Zendaya individually after they received their roles in Spider-Man: Homecoming. “I took Tom and Zendaya aside, separately, when we first cast them and gave them a lecture,” she said. “Don’t go there, just don’t. Try not to.”
Pascal believed that beginning a romantic relationship while committed to a long-running film franchise could complicate the actors’ work if the relationship later ended.
Holland and Zendaya met during the screen-testing process for Homecoming. They were linked romantically as early as 2017, although their relationship was not publicly confirmed until photographs showed them kissing in Los Angeles in July 2021.
‘Spider-Man’ Already Had a History of Costar Romances
Holland and Zendaya were not the first actors playing a Spider-Man couple to develop an offscreen relationship. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst briefly dated while working on Sam Raimi’s original trilogy. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone later became a couple after meeting through 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man.
Pascal said she gave Garfield and Stone the same warning she later offered Holland and Zendaya. “It can just complicate things, you know?” she said in 2021. “And they all ignored me.” Garfield and Stone remained together for several years before separating in 2015.
Holland Confirmed the Secret Wedding Through an AI Story
Holland effectively confirmed the marriage during a June interview with Esquire while discussing fake, AI-generated photographs that appeared to show the couple marrying at Lake Como in Italy.
He said his grandmother saw the images and worried that she had not been invited. When asked whether he had to reassure other relatives that the photographs were fake, Holland replied, “No, because they were all there.” Asked to reveal more about the actual ceremony, he declined. “That’s all you’ll get on that,” Holland said.
Zendaya’s longtime stylist, Law Roach, had already said in March that the wedding had happened privately. Holland subsequently referred to Zendaya as his “wife” in several interviews, while the couple continued withholding the date, location and other ceremony details.
Holland and Zendaya are returning as Peter and MJ in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, their fourth Spider-Man movie together. The film follows Homecoming, Far From Home and No Way Home, which ended with MJ no longer remembering Peter after Doctor Strange’s spell erased him from the world’s memory.