At the premiere of his new film this week, Tom Holland said:

“The bravest thing that you can do in life is ask for help. Even in times when you feel like you’re most alone, there’s always going to be someone that you can turn to, lean on, and ask for help.”

We all know the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire, then Andrew Garfield, and now the face of a younger generation, Tom Holland.

He’s also someone who got sober and has been open about why. He stepped back from social media when it started to hurt him, saying he spirals reading things about himself online, and he’s spoken about the mental toll a demanding role took on him.

He even turned down hosting Saturday Night Live because his dyslexia makes reading live cues too hard.

“When I have to read out loud, it’s like a mental block and I can freeze.”

Rather than hiding it he talks about it openly and doesn’t shy away from what he is feeling.

It’s one thing to play a hero on screen. It’s another to carry that responsibility into how you actually live, what you say, and how honest you’re willing to be about your own struggles.

Zendaya put it best.

“He cares so much about Peter Parker and the character. I love the way that he extends that outside of his everyday life because little kids don’t know that he’s not Spider-Man, and I think he wears that with pride.”

In our workshops we see boys show up with the same courage, when another boy in the room shares something real and vulnerable for the first time, and suddenly everyone realises they aren’t alone in what they’re carrying.

If there’s a boy in your life who’s watched Spider-Man grow up on screen, this could be a moment to open up a conversation.

So Tom, thank you.

You’re the type of role model we talk about all the time at The Man Cave. The perfect mix of what it means to be a man. Strong and vulnerable, Honest and Authentic. Talk about the hard things because you know it makes a difference.

Thank you for taking the role of Spider-Man seriously. You know the line better than anyone. With great power comes great responsibility. And you carry yourself off screen like you mean it, because the little kids watching really believe you’re Spidey.

And lastly, thank you for reminding us that you don’t need a mask to be a hero

💚