Tom Holland Shares Fred Astaire Biopic Update, Wants To Film Dance Scenes As Oners: “How He Would Have Done It”

With a big summer that includes promoting The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Tom Holland is ready to strap into his dancing shoes for his next role.

Nearly five years after he revealed he’d be leading a Fred Astaire biopic, the actor recently shared an update on the Paul King-directed, Lee Hall-penned film, as well as the “absolute dread” of training to emulate Astaire’s dance moves.

“For me, what I love about my job is the challenges,” he explained on Good Morning America. “We have Fred Astaire next, is what we’re planning on doing. And as soon as I finish with these tours, I’m diving back into the dance studio.

“I did my first few rehearsals recently, and it both filled me with excitement and absolute dread because I’ve got so much work to do to try and do Fred proud,” added Holland.

Holland noted that with his onscreen dancing in the biopic, he has “a desire to use no doubles, to do all of the dancing, to shoot those dances in one shot – how [Astaire] would have done it.”

In 2021, Holland revealed his casting as the legendary dancer and choreographer in the Amy Pascal-produced Sony film, which is not to be confused with Amazon and Automatik’s Fred & Ginger, starring Jamie Bell as Astaire and Margaret Qualley as Ginger Rogers in the dance partners’ on and off-screen love story.

The onscreen dance legacy continues after Bell made his breakout performance in the 2000 British dance film Billy Elliot, which was written by Hall. Holland began his career starring in the title role of Billy Elliot: The Musical (following a brief run as the protagonist’s best friend Michael Caffrey) on the West End from 2008 to 2010.