Tom Holland was asked who he could imagine taking over as Spider-Man when his time in the suit eventually ends. His answer, in a new Esquire interview, was Owen Cooper.
“Owen Cooper would be awesome,” Holland said. “Obviously he’s super-talented and the talk of the town right now.”
This is a fairly significant endorsement. Holland is not a casual Marvel fan with an opinion. He is the person who has been Spider-Man for a decade, who is about to film his fourth solo outing in the role with Brand New Day, and who has spent more time as Peter Parker on screen than Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield combined. When he says someone would be awesome in the role, people listen.
The full-circle element to this is almost too neat. Cooper has already said he wants to play Spider-Man. In a 2025 interview with i-D, while talking about films he loves and the actors who inspired him, he said plainly: “I want to play Spider-Man.”
So you have the reigning Spider-Man naming a 16-year-old from Warrington as his ideal successor, and that same teenager having already publicly announced the role as a dream. Marvel has not confirmed anything. Holland is not leaving yet. This is a fun conversation, not a casting announcement.
But it is a fun conversation worth having.
Cooper came from nowhere in the most literal sense. His role as Jamie Miller in Netflix’s Adolescence was his first professional screen credit – a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate, performed in the show’s distinctive one-shot style that left nowhere to hide and no safety net of editing to lean on. The show became one of Netflix’s most discussed dramas of 2025. Cooper’s performance was singled out almost immediately.
The awards moved quickly. At 15, he became the youngest male actor to win a Primetime Emmy acting award, taking Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. He then picked up recognition at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards and BAFTAs. That is not the trajectory of someone who had a good debut. That is the trajectory of someone who made critics and industry veterans sit up and take notice in a way that does not happen often.
Holland’s “talk of the town” assessment is not hyperbole.
Holland also went somewhere interesting beyond just naming Cooper. He talked about what he wants to do for whoever comes next – not just step aside, but actually be there.
“In the way that Robert Downey was such a mentor for me in my first three movies, I would love to be that person for whoever is next,” he said.
That matters because the Downey mentorship is not just a warm anecdote. Holland has talked before about Downey intervening during Captain America: Civil War when Peter Parker’s introduction had been cut down. Downey, as the biggest star in the room, asked where “the kid’s lines” had gone and pushed for the fuller version to be shot. He told the directors they could always cut it later. They didn’t cut it. That scene became one of the moments that established Holland’s Peter Parker.
Downey used his power to give the new kid a proper chance. Holland is saying, out loud in Esquire, that he would like to do the same for whoever follows.
Spider-Man is one of the few superhero roles where recasting is almost built into the mythology at this point. Maguire was the original. Garfield brought a sharper, more wounded version. Holland gave the MCU a younger, more openly emotional Peter Parker who got it catastrophically wrong before he got it right. Each of them had to win over an audience that was convinced the previous version was irreplaceable.
Each of them managed it.
Cooper would face the same challenge. But he is already used to carrying something heavier than a normal teenage performance – and the whole point of Spider-Man is that he is a kid trying to do the right thing while life keeps punishing him for it. Anyone who watched Adolescence knows Cooper can do that.
On the side: Holland’s Esquire cycle also produced what appeared to be his clearest confirmation yet that he and Zendaya are married. He appeared to confirm it while discussing AI-generated wedding photos of the pair – saying his family knew the images were fake “because they were all there.” The Guardian ran the story. But the Spider-Man succession comment will probably travel further with Marvel fans.
No decisions need to be made yet. Holland is still very much Spider-Man. Cooper is 16. But if he ever does end up in the suit, he can at least say Tom Holland called it first.
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