When Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and friends go on a post-Avengers: Endgame vacation in Europe over the course of Spider-Man: Far From Home, the students get an unwitting chaperone in Mr. Dell, portrayed by Curb Your Enthusiasm star J.B. Smoove.
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Smoove, who teamed with Holland in a 2017 Spider-Man: Homecoming tie-in Audi commercial, impressed Marvel and won the role of a Midtown School of Science and Technology teacher who accompanies Mr. Harrington (Martin Starr) and his class of big-brained students on their overseas field trip.
“We’re also bringing back Martin Starr as the hapless Mr. Harrington. Together [with Mr. Dell], they constitute the least-capable group of chaperones ever to be sent to Europe with a bunch of kids,” Far From Home producer Eric Carroll told Screenrant.
“When we knew we wanted a teacher to be escorting these kids across Europe, [Mr. Harrington] was our first choice,” Carroll said, adding the Audi commercial — which saw Parker take his driving test, piloting a prototype owned by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) — fit into the tone the filmmaker’s sought for the Homecoming followup.
“So, sure enough, now we’ve got these two as this amazing comedic pair showing these kids around Europe.”
The pair, Carroll added, are on the opposite ends of the spectrum when the field trip is interrupted by elemental monsters assaulting the continent.
“Martin Starr, he’s like, ‘Okay, kids, there’s a water monster. So, maybe we’ll—’and then you’ve got J.B. Smoove doing the exact opposite. ‘Are you guys seeing this?!’”
Where Homecoming took inspiration from ’80s teen comedies The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Far From Home looked to lesser-seen 1991 action-comedy If Looks Could Kill.
“You get to have this teenage James Bond character,” director Jon Watts told USA Today. “Total world-weary Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and enthusiastic New York teenager Peter Parker gallivanting across Europe – what’s more fun than that? You put them together and you have some good stuff.”
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Samuel L. Jackson, Spider-Man: Far From Home opens July 2.
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