Tom Holland cut from Anne Boleyn beheading as BBC disguises nine-year wait for Wolf Hall sequel

It’s an act of trickery and deception worthy of the scheming Thomas Cromwell himself.

The BBC has cut Spider-Man star Tom Holland from a crucial scene in the first series of Wolf Hall to get around the fact he couldn’t be in the sequel which starts tonight.

Holland, now one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, was an unknown when he appeared as Cromwell’s son Gregory in the original Wolf Hall back in 2015.

The 28-year-old has been cut from a flashback sequence which uses footage from a scene he was actually in. 

Wolf Hall: The Mirror And The Light, again with Sir Mark Rylance as Cromwell and Damian Lewis as Henry VIII, begins at the very moment the last series ended with the bloody execution of Queen Anne Boleyn.

The Spider-Man star has been cut from a crucial scene in the first series of Wolf Hall to get around the fact he couldn’t appear in the sequel

Viewers will see a truncated version of the scene when the Queen, played by Claire Foy, hands out money to spectators on her way to the scaffold. 

In the original, the young Gregory played by Holland asks his father: ‘Why does she keep looking up at the tower?’ 

The elder Cromwell replies: ‘Because she thinks there’s still hope.’

But in the reshoot, the question is asked by Vanity Fair and Slow Horses star Charlie Rowe, 28, who has been cast as Gregory.

Since appearing in the first series of Wolf Hall, Holland made his debut as Spider-Man and has gone on to play the superhero six times.

Soon after appearing in the first series, Holland made his debut as Spider-Man and has gone on to play the superhero six times. 

The BBC’s decision to reshoot his Wolf Hall scene will lead to speculation he was simply too expensive for the sequel, which also stars Sir Jonathan Pryce, Dame Harriet Walter and Alex Jennings.

Earlier this year, actor Tom Hollander revealed an agent had sent him a cheque meant for Holland – an ‘astonishing’ seven-figure bonus for just a single film.