Spider-Man: No Way Home Star Tom Holland Was "Terrified" of Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus
Tom Holland will face his childhood fear when his Spider-Man goes toe-to-toe — and limb-to-limb — with Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Way Home. "Hello, Peter," says the Spider-Man 2 villain in the first trailer for the Sony and Marvel movie, somehow back from the dead and stepping foot in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In a new interview with Empire Magazine ahead of the release of the Far From Home sequel swinging into theaters on December 17, the 25-year-old Spidey star admits to being "terrified" of Molina's tormented and tentacled Doc Ock in 2004's Spider-Man 2:
"I was obsessed with [Sam] Raimi's movies," Holland says in the No Way Home-centric print issue of Empire Magazine. At eight years old, Holland recalls, "I remember seeing Alfred in his costume for the first time, and he had the glasses on, and he was wearing his belt, which is what the legs were attached to. And I remember, as a kid, being terrified of him."
17 years later, it's an unmasked Peter Parker (Holland) grappling with the Multiversal mad scientist vanquished years ago by the Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) of another universe. And he's not alone: a propelled pumpkin bomb teases the return of the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe).
For Marvel Studios President and producer Kevin Feige, who served as an associate producer on Raimi's first Spider-Man and an executive producer on Spider-Man 2 and 3, Molina's Doc Ock comeback comes after the MCU's Spidey squared off with villains never seen before on the big screen: Vulture (Michael Keaton) and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal).
"'Do we want to revisit villains we've seen before?' No, let's do Vulture, and Mysterio, and characters we haven't brought to the screen before," Feige told Empire. "But I remember thinking, 'How would you even do Doc Ock again?,' because Alfred Molina is perfect casting. If you ever brought him back, it would have to be him somehow."
That "somehow" is a dangerous spell cast by Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), attempting to put the genie back in the bottle after Mysterio exposes Spider-Man's secret identity in Far From Home.
Starring Tom Holland, Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, and Benedict Cumberbatch, Sony and Marvel's Spider-Man: No Way Home swings into theaters on December 17.