Emmy Rossum and Tom Holland in ‘The Crowded Room.’ Apple TV+
Tom Holland was thankful for his sobriety while dealing with stressful situations on the set of The Crowded Room.
“There was quite a lot of animosity on that set,” Holland, 28, revealed during a Men’s Health profile, which was published on Thursday, January 2. “It was not a very harmonious place, and there was a lot of arguing and butting heads.”
Holland’s decision to cut out alcohol allowed him to navigate the drama. “I thought, ‘If I start drinking again now — with all this going on — it’s gonna get worse, right?’”
The Crowded Room, which premiered in May 2022, was inspired by the 1981 nonfiction book The Minds of Billy Milligan about the first person in U.S. history acquitted of a major crime by pleading dissociative identity disorder. In addition to Holland, the show starred Amanda Seyfried, Sasha Lane, Will Chase, Lior Raz and Emmy Rossum.
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While this is the first time claims about The Crowded Room set were brought up, Holland has previously discussed the emotional impact of playing the lead role.
“Learning about mental health and the power of it, and speaking to psychiatrists about [the characters] Danny and Billy’s struggles, has been something that has been so informative to my own life,” he told Entertainment Weekly in May 2023. “I’m no stranger to the physical aspects of the job doing the whole action-movie thing. But the mental aspect, it really beat me up, and it took a long time for me to recover afterwards, to sort of get back to reality.”
Tom Holland in ‘The Crowded Room.’ Apple TV+
Holland recalled struggling with the subject matter, adding, “I was seeing myself in him, but in my personal life. I remember having a bit of a meltdown at home and thinking, like, ‘I’m going to shave my head. I need to shave my head because I need to get rid of this character.’ And, obviously, we were mid-shooting, so I decided not to. … It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.”
The actor has also been candid about his sobriety journey after realizing his dependency on alcohol.
“Every Friday after work was a write-off. Let’s get drunk and have a good time. I didn’t have bad experiences, but I would drink enough so that I would ruin my next day,” he told Men’s Health on Thursday. “I’m quite strong-willed. When I decide to do something, I’m really gonna do it. I leaned on close ones a lot: family, friends, old colleagues, new colleagues, people that reached out that I didn’t know who also were sober.”
Tom Holland in ‘The Crowded Room.’ Apple TV+
Holland credited his lawyer for helping him, saying, “He gave me a really poignant piece of advice that helped me get through everything, which was, ‘You’ll never wake up the morning after a night out and wish you had a drink.’ That piece of advice really rang true to me, because my problem was that I would have one drink and be fine, and then I would just go too far.”
