It’s always lovely to see a short king with his tall queen! Zendaya and Tom Holland were out in NYC last night. They’ve both been in New York all week for The Odyssey’s promotion, but last night, they attended the Gold House x OpenTable dinner at the Japanese restaurant Wokuni. Zendaya wore a raw-silk Elie Saab dress and Louboutins. Tom wore jeans and a sweater (it’s July!!). Still, it’s sweet that they had a nice date night. I can’t imagine how chaotic their schedules have been, but I bet they’ve enjoyed being on two promotional tours together in recent months (Spider-Man and The Odyssey).
Speaking of, Tom and Zendaya recently talked about how they both came onto The Odyssey – Christopher Nolan contacted Tom before Zendaya, but Zendaya was the one who convinced Tom to take the role. From People:
Tom Holland has an amusing story regarding how Zendaya encouraged him to take a leading role in The Odyssey. When Holland sat down with Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and writer-director Christopher Nolan to discuss the filmmaker’s latest epic with PEOPLE for this week’s issue, the 30-year-old actor quipped he did “a lot of thinking” when Nolan, 55, first asked him to costar in the movie as Telemachus, son of Damon’s Odysseus and Hathaway’s Penelope.
“To be honest, when I got home after our meeting, I sat down with Z and was like, ‘I’ve been offered this movie,’” Holland says, referencing Zendaya, the actress whom he has been in a relationship with since 2021 and married earlier this year. “And she was like, ‘By who?’ And I was like, ‘It’s the big one.’ And she was like, ‘Chris?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s Chris Nolan.’”
“And then we had Spider-Man that was literally scheduled to go the same day that we would start shooting,” he adds. “Z said, ‘I’ll leave you if you don’t do The Odyssey.‘” Cue laughter from Damon, Hathaway and Nolan.
“Yes. Well, thank you to her,” Nolan responds, chuckling. “Here I am,” Holland adds.
Holland signing on to The Odyssey required him to ask Sony Pictures executive Tom Rothman — Sony produces the Spider-Man movies — to push back production on Spidey’s next entry, Brand New Day, in order for him to make the movie, as Holland recounted to GQ in a June feature. Holland got the green light and now he and Zendaya, who plays Athena in The Odyssey and costars in the Spider-Man movies as Peter Parker’s love interest Michelle “M.J.” Jones, are having a double blockbuster summer (the new Spider-Man movie hits theaters July 31).
What’s a little bit funny about this is that… a lot of people who have already seen The Odyssey are saying that Tom is the weak link in the film. That everyone else is great, especially Anne Hathaway, Matt Damon and Elliot Page, but that Tom… well, he’s not giving his best performance, let’s say that. But still. I love Tom and Zendaya together, so here’s hoping those people are wrong.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
