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Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal tell PEOPLE about how their off-screen friendship and history working together informed their dynamic in Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the movie’s Los Angeles premiere
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Holland and Bernthal first worked together in the 2017 Irish movie Pilgrimage, which they made while auditioning for their respective Marvel Cinematic Universe roles
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters July 31
Tom Holland and Jon Bernthal are opening up about how their off-screen friendship informed the on-screen dynamic between their characters in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Holland, 30, and Bernthal, 49, chatted with PEOPLE at the Los Angeles premiere of their new movie together on Monday, July 27, where Holland shares that reuniting with Bernthal on Spider-Man’s set “was a lot of fun.”
The actors first worked together on the 2017 Irish movie Pilgrimage. They reunited on-screen again in Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey before going to shoot the new Spider-Man soon after.
“We’d just come off of Nolan’s job, and we’d had such an incredible experience with Chris,” Holland says. “We came to Spider-Man, and it was like all bets were off. We just had this fun six-week improvised session where we were just constantly telling jokes, constantly trying to find new ways to bring humor to the movie.”
Jon Bernthal and tom Holland at Spider-Man: Brand New Day premiere on July 27, 2026
Credit: Christopher Polk/Deadline via Getty
In The Odyssey, Holland’s Telemachus travels to Sparta to ask for word of his father Odysseus (Matt Damon) from its king Menelaus (Bernthal), who fought alongside Odysseus in the Trojan War. In Spider-Man, Holland’s Peter Parker knows Bernthal’s Frank Castle/Punisher as one of several vigilantes roaming the streets of New York City.
Throughout the movie, the pair share an alliance. “My favorite thing is how our relationship informed the relationship between the two characters,” Holland adds of his friendship with Bernthal. “What was on the page is very different to what’s in the movie, and that’s a testament to who Jon is as an actor, and what he can bring to the scene.”
Bernthal, for his part, says that it was “such a thrill” to get to work with Holland again. “Look, I’ve known Tom since he was 17 years old. We made our audition tapes [for the Marvel Cinematic Universe] together. I’m such an enormous fan of his. Look, the greatest thing about this business is the people that you meet along the way. It was so beautiful for me to see how far he’s come, but also to see that he’s still the same guy, that he’s kind, he’s righteous, he’s hardworking.”
“I really can’t say enough good about Tom,” he adds. “A real thrill for me to reconnect with him.”
Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
Credit: Jay Maidment
Bernthal’s Frank Castle first appeared in 2016’s Daredevil before also starring in a series titled The Punisher, which ran between 2017 and 2019. He reprised the part for Daredevil: Born Again and The Punisher: One Last Kill in the last two years.
Holland, of course, has been playing Peter Parker on the big screen since 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. The new Spider-Man marks his fourth solo entry as the iconic superhero.
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day is in theaters July 31.
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