Legendary Skaterboarder Tony Hawk Critiques Amazing Spider-Man’s Skateboard Sequence

Tony Hawk’s wild resurgence as a beloved cultural figure is one of the really fun parts of the late 2010s. Now, he’s using his skateboarding skills to break down Spider-Man’s stance and skills in the Amazing Spider-Man series. It’s pretty wild that GQ got the legend himself to sit down and talk about this moment from a series of films that a lot of fans have moved on from. Back when the first Amazing Spider-Man was announced, many people raised their eyebrows at the idea of Garfield’s version of the character skateboarding. There have been wilder ideas that people have trotted out for the wall-crawler, but this one was an early tell for how much this depiction would diverge from the Tobey Maguire version. Still, the film has its supporters and it is kind of sad that the proposed third film never got to see the light of day. Most fans couldn’t care less because they love what Tom Holland has brought to the table with his Marvel Cinematic Universe depiction. But, at least Holland isn’t getting called out by an action sports icon.

Hawk began, “You can see that his foot is attached to his board in an unnatural way. So, definitely, his back foot right there is stuck to the board somehow, with something other than gravity. So, that’s a tell right there, where it’s like, ‘All right, we’re not in reality here.’”

“He must have had the skateboard attached to the shoes,” he explains. “And to go around and do a backflip and be confident enough and skilled enough to know that you actually are going to land on your feet is pretty awesome. ‘Cause that’s risky. Imagine that you strapped a snowboard to your feet and someone threw you in a backflip. You gotta still kand it. And that’s what he did… But, we know it’s not real.”

That idea of feeling real pops up a number of times when people talk about these characters on film. (Although suspension of disbelief is important to these works overall.) And yet, that feeling of “being a believable Spider-Man” is a large reason why Tom Holland is the one under the mask right now. But, in previous interviews, Garfield points out that the role still crosses his mind from time to time.

“There’s something that happened with that experience for me where story and character were not actually top of the priority list, ultimately, ” Garfield said to Variety. “And I found that really, really tricky. I signed up to serve the story and to serve this incredible character I’d been dressing as since I was 3. And then it gets compromised, and it breaks my heart. I got heartbroken a little bit.”