TMS Spotlight: It's a Tomdaya World and We're Just Living In It

(Susan González)

Many have noticed a handful of actors keep popping up in new releases this year. Anne Hathaway has a whopping five movies for 2026; Robert Pattinson has four. Florence Pugh is going to co-star in both ‘Dunesday’ releases in December, and had a surprise cameo in Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-man: Brand New Day now in theaters. But the two stars the public can’t seem to escape or willingly get enough of are Tom Holland and Zendaya, who have to also be the biggest celeb couple in Hollywood currently. Tom is this generation Peter Parker/Spider-man and just played Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey; while Z won a Golden Globe and two Emmys for Best Actress in a Drama Series for HBO’s “Euphoria” (2019-2026), has roles in two major studio franchises: Marvel’s Spider-man (2017- ) and Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021-26), and various interesting films on her resume including Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers (2024), and The Odyssey and Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama this year. Oh, and the two supposedly got married in private within the past 6-8 months. There has been a fair share of celebrity power couples over the years, whether it’s Gable/Lombard, Bogie/Bacall, Burton/Taylor or Pitt/Jolie. But usually they’re a part of demographic that doesn’t necessarily cater to really young fans, and those famous couples who do, only have exposure with kids and teenagers, and virtually no adults. Like the Britney/Justin or Aaron/Hilary type couples you see in teenybopper zines.

Tom and Zendaya have attention from across all age groups, and the trajectories of both their careers and relationship might actually make a lot of sense when you look into them. Both performers began as child actors, with Tom starring in the hit West End musical production of Lee Hall & Elton John’s ‘Billy Elliot’ from 2008 to 2010, and playing one of young sons in J.A. Bayona’s disaster docudrama The Impossible (2012). Zendaya is a former Disney player whose projects included co-starring on the family sitcom “Shake It Up” (2010-13) and releasing a few pop singles between 2011 and 2014. Their maturities on screen gradually progressed as Tom appeared in historical dramas like Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea (2015) and James Gray’s The Lost City of Z (2016), and Z was cast in Michael Gracey’s musical biopic The Greatest Showman (2017) and as the main lead on “Euphoria;” before each became globally recognizable through Marvel, Dune and now The Odyssey.

(Marvel Studios / Sony Pictures)

What’s unique about their romantic relationship off screen is how popular they’ve become together while also being very private—even in the beginning. I remember way back when Jon Watts’ first two MCU era Spider-man movies—Homecoming (2017) and Far from Home (2019)—were out and so many of Zendaya’s fans were claiming up and down social media that there was no way she and Tom were dating; even though there were already a lot of candid photos and set stories suggesting otherwise. “She’s too private,” “They’re just good friends,” “Stop spreading gossip,” and so on. Yes, there was a confirmed break early on when Z was spotted going out with her “Euphoria” co-star Jacob Elordi. But by autumn 2021, during the press tour of Watts’ Spider-man: No Way Home, Tom and Z verified their relationship in the most Tomdaya way possible [a grainy paparazzi shot of them kissing inside a car]. Since then, every update we’ve gotten on the couple has been through people in their lives.

Sometimes I wonder where those old Zendaya fans who insisted she and Tom were just friendly co-stars are nowadays; and how much hypothetical egg is on their faces whenever a picture pops up of the two holding hands or embracing, or there are reports like them moving to London or adopting another dog. I think the fact that they rarely go into public detail on their relationship is a big reason they’ve lasted so long in the spotlight as a pair and haven’t been accused of over exposure. Tom has even openly discussed very possibly taking a break from acting. And if he does, you can’t blame him for feeling like he earned it. He’s the face of the biggest superhero in the world, in the biggest R-rated fantasy epic in the world, both alongside his wife, who is also at the prime of her career and doesn’t look to be stopping anytime soon. If there’s a way to be the most profiled couple in showbiz without any drama or scandal, and operate primarily on mystique, Tom & Zendaya have it on lock.

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