In case you hadn’t noticed, Tom Holland is shorter than his Spider-Man costar and girlfriend, Zendaya. While this has not stopped the pair from going toe to toe on the red carpet, it has made one aspect of their working relationship a bit more difficult.
According to the actors, who appeared on The Graham Norton Show for a joint interview on December 3, their two-inch height difference made one stunt for the upcoming third film, No Way Home, a bit troublesome.
“There’s a particular stunt where Spider-Man swings us on top of a bridge, and he places me there,” Zendaya explained, per People. “He’s supposed to gently rest MJ on the bridge and walk away from her. Because of our height difference—we were attached, so I would land before him. My feet obviously hit the ground before he does.”
Holland jumped in to explain that they would get around this particular issue using the “bottom mark” technique. “The ‘bottom mark’ is a thing that they do in stunts that is basically designed to stop you from shattering your kneecaps,” he said, before standing with Zendaya to demonstrate, “She would land, and then I would sort of land like this, and then my feet would swing from underneath me, and she would catch me.”
Holland did complain that the move hurt his ego a touch, saying, “I’m the superhero. I’m supposed to look cool.”
While Holland jokingly told Zendaya to “stop doing that,” the Dune star said her costar was actually “very lovely” about the whole thing. “You were like, ‘Oh my gosh, thank you,'” she said.
He laughed, adding, “It’s so nice to be caught for a change.”
Zendaya and Holland met on the set of Spider-Man back in 2016. While the pair still haven’t technically confirmed their relationship, they’ve definitely become more affectionate in public since photos of them kissing went viral in July 2021.
“I’ve always been really adamant to keep my private life private because I share so much of my life with the world anyway,” Holland recently told GQ. “We sort of felt robbed of our privacy. I don’t think it’s about not being ready—it’s just that we didn’t want to [talk about it].”
He added, “This isn’t my story, it’s our story. And we’ll talk about what it is when we’re ready to talk about it together.”