The team behind Paramount Network's hit series Lip Sync Battle recently admitted that putting together Tom Holland's 2017 performance to Rihanna's "Umbrella" was terrifying.
"Dancing in water, it's scary because it is slippery," choreographer Danielle Flora told Insider in a recent interview about the episode featuring Holland and Zendaya. "There was a moment in rehearsal where we did it with the water for the first time, and he slipped a little bit when he did that flip at the end, and I was like, 'Oh, god.'"
Flora added that she actually thought she was going to lose her job as a result of killing the Spider-Man actor. "But he was adamant about it," she said. "He was not taking it out."
Dancer Marvin Brown also shared that Holland's performance was the most challenging routine he ever worked on for the show. He said, "They were constantly adding things to make it a little bit more difficult every time, and Tom was the kind of the person who never said no. He would make it harder for himself." Brown continued, "He wanted to go out in the crowd, and we were like, 'You can't do that!' He wanted to do too much."
Casey Patterson, an executive producer for the show, said that the actor kept adding elements to his performance in the final seconds before he took the stage. "As nervous as he was right before the show, he kept adding," Patterson said. "He'd say, 'Oh, I have an idea.' Like, 'Can I stage dive?' With both of him and Zendaya, it was the commitment. They went really hard for their fans."
Holland's "Umbrella" performance opened with the actor taking the stage in a top hat and suit but soon removed the more conservative look in order to grind on an actual umbrella while wearing a pleather leotard, red lipstick and chin-length wig. The episode also found Holland covering Nelly's "Ride Wit Me," while his Spider-Man: Far From Home costar Zendaya delivered a lively pair of performances while lip-syncing to Erykah Badu's "Tyrone" and Bruno Mars' "24K Magic."
Holland ended up winning the battle and his performance of "Umbrella" has since been viewed on YouTube more than 68 million times. While the viral performance was fun for a while, the actor later admitted the performance "has kind of come back to haunt me a little bit." Specifically, the actor told Entertainment Weekly earlier this year, "I get more compliments from dancing in the rain in fishnets than anything [else] I've done."
Holland and Zendaya will reprise their roles as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and MJ, respectively, in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Directed by Jon Watts, Spider-Man: No Way Home stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Tony Revolori, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina and Benedict Cumberbatch. The film arrives in theaters Dec. 17.