Many celebrities have appeared on Saturday Night Live, but Tom Holland isn’t one of them. The reason actually has little to do with the show itself (Tom loves it and has actually already been invited to host).
Instead, it’s something far more personal: he’s honestly just “petrified” of reading lines from cue cards on the show because he lives with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a lifelong condition that affects a person’s reading, writing, and spelling.
For Tom, reading out loud is what worries him about being on the show.
He got vulnerable during an appearance on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. The Spider-Man: Brand New Day actor said, “I’m heavily dyslexic, which is one of the reasons why—and I’d love to talk to you today about it, actually—is why I’ve never done SNL.”
SNL uses handwritten cue cards instead of teleprompters. And changes are sometimes made super suddenly, at the last minute, which Tom finds intimidating. “I’m just so petrified at the concept of, like, trying to read something and they change,” he admitted.
He added, “It’s just that, for me, I can read fine. But when I have to read out loud, it just becomes, a kind of… it’s like a mental block, and I can freeze.”
So, although he’s been asked to host the show “a few times” now, we probably won’t see him on it.
tom holland tells amy poehler one of the main reasons he’s never hosed snl is because of his dyslexia and the fear of reading the cue cards on live tv
— susie (@susieetweets) June 2, 2026
amy reminds tom that “people have fully been on drugs and hosted” 😭
i do love this moment where tom was vulnerable with amy pic.twitter.com/8ursvi4Wid
Tom made it clear that he really appreciates the fact that he’s had the opportunity to host. However, that doesn’t mean he thinks the opportunity is for him.
“I’ve been really lucky that they’ve asked me a few times to do it, and the truth is that I’m actually just really scared at the prospect,” he said. “I love the show, and I love the idea of having fun and making a fool of yourself in such a fun, creative way. It’s just that thing of the cue cards.”
Amy tried to encourage him. At one point, she said people with dyslexia have probably hosted the show before, given that it’s been on for more than 50 years. Besides, dyslexia is quite common. According to the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, it affects up to 20% of the population.
“You have to remember, there have been people that have hosted who have been fully on drugs, so I think you can do it,” Amy also pointed out.
Tom also spoke about how dyslexia has impacted his acting career.
When working on films, Tom dreads the “read-through” day the most. This is when the cast reads their script out loud. It sounds like he’s found a way to navigate it, but it’s still the “worst day” for him.
“So, for me, my worst day at work is the read-through,” he told Amy. “At the read-through, I will really try and highlight everything and learn my lines ahead of time, so that I’m more kind of skimming it than I am reading.”
Tom’s comments started circulating on social media, and the response was generally supportive. Fans really appreciated how vulnerable and open he was. “Tom being vulnerable like this is why he’s so relatable,” one fan on X wrote. “Dyslexia is tough — props to him for knowing his limits and still crushing it in everything else.”
Someone else said, “i’ve never thought (about) this or nerves being the reason someone wouldn’t wanna host… I truly think he could do it! but I respect that decision.”
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