Florence Pugh credits Tom Holland for her Spider-Man: Brand New Day casting
Florence Pugh says Tom Holland is the reason she joined Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
She told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show on Monday, 28 September that Holland had pushed for her casting, according to Variety. She gave him full credit. NBC later listed the segment as “Florence Pugh Says Tom Holland Helped Her Land Her Spider-Man: Brand New Day Role.”
Pugh said Holland named her on the red carpet for his previous film. He told reporters he wanted to make the next film with Florence Pugh, who plays Yelena Belova. That public invitation, she said, led to the offer.
Yelena is her long-running Marvel role. Pugh first played Yelena Belova, a trained fighter linked to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, in 2021’s Black Widow. She returned in 2025’s Thunderbolts* and then stepped into the Spider-Man story in 2026.
The interview travelled fast. The Tonight Show’s official YouTube channel published the conversation on 29 September. Its Facebook and TikTok pages posted the same moment that day. BroadwayWorld also reported her comments on 29 September.
Brand New Day premiered on 31 July. Days later Pugh joined Holland, Zendaya and Marisa Tomei at the London premiere for the film.
The film then set an all-time record in its home market. It took $360 million in the United States and Canada — domestic, the industry term for those two countries counted together — over its opening weekend, according to Reuters. That figure was reported on 5 August.
For fans, this fills in a casting link that had looked like a surprise. Holland leads the Spider-Man films. Pugh had built her Marvel run in other stories.
What comes next keeps Pugh in two large franchise lines. She is set to play Princess Irulan Corrino again in Dune: Part Three, directed by Denis Villeneuve. She is also set to return as Yelena in Avengers: Doomsday, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. Both films are scheduled for theatre release on 18 December.
Holland had himself appeared on The Tonight Show on 13 July, ahead of the Spider-Man release.
