The Marvel Cinematic Universe is about to feature its own Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Homecoming, but Tom Holland’s boyish superhero won’t be the only familiar face appearing the movie. Silicon Valley star Martin Starr told The Wrap he’s playing a teacher and decathlon coach at Spidey’s New York City high school. But this isn’t the first time Starr has been in the MCU: In 2008, he played an unnamed grad student in Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk, which starred Edward Norton as the big green Avenger.
“I’m the academic decathlon coach and one of the teachers at the school so I have a bit of a thing in it,” Starr said of his role in Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: Homecoming. “The story has a lot of action and fun in it, but it’s also a sweet, coming-of-age story of a kid.”
Homecoming will certainly be a different kind of Marvel movie than the creature feature that was The Incredible Hulk, in which Starr made his previous appearance in the MCU. In The Incredible Hulk, Starr played an unnamed student who Norton’s Bruce Banner bribed with pizza. In the movie novelization, Starr’s character was identified as Amadeus Cho, who in the comics is the Korean-American boy genius who becomes the new Hulk after the death of Bruce Banner.
Starr’s character in Homecoming could possibly be his unnamed student from Hulk all grown up — a real 8-9 years have passed in the MCU’s continuity between Hulk and Spider-Man — but it could also be another instance of the MCU double-casting its actors. Last year, Alfre Woodard appeared in Captain America: Civil War and Luke Cage as two entirely different characters. Matt Gerald had a role in the 2013 Blu-ray/DVD short All Hail the King, a mini-sequel to Iron Man 3, before playing Melvin Potter in Daredevil. And Laura Haddock played an adoring fan of Captain America in The First Avenger before becoming Peter Quill’s terminally ill mother in Guardians of the Galaxy. So it’s not unprecedented for Starr to play multiple roles in the seemingly expansive Marvel Universe.
Spider-Man: Homecoming will be released on July 7, 2017.
