Just before the F1 race last week, actor Jacob Batalon was in town to promote Spider-Man: Far From Home, where he plays the eponymous web-slinger (Tom Holland) adorkable sidekick/BFF Ned Leeds.

It was the Filipino-American's second tour in less than three months on the road plugging the movie, first for its theatrical run, and now its home media release. (He was in Singapore two years to promote Spider-Man: Homecoming.)

Back to school: Jacob and Tom Holland in a scene from 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'.

Batalon, 22, was more relaxed this time around; he didn’t have to worry about dropping spoilers in interviews (that was Holland’s job). All he had to concern himself with was fielding questions about his experiences working on the Marvel movies, and, er, Spider-Man’s split from Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In person, Batalon is as friendly, easy-going and playful as his on-screen alter-ego; it isn’t difficult to become fast pals with him. When Batalon dropped by the Mediacorp campus, 8 DAYS not only sat in n his interview with Daniel Martin on CNA 938 (see the video below), we also got him for a quick chat and a photo shoot.

Post-script: A week after his visit, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures announced they’re back in the Spider-Man business after a brief falling out last month. Batalon tells us via Whatsapp, We are back and we are going to keep having fun and making great movies!

8 DAYS: Now that you’ve worked on four MCU movies, how good are you at keeping secrets?

JACOB BATALON: Honestly, if you want to keep your job, it’s definitely not that hard to not tell the secret. For the most part, I feel journalists and publicists all know they can’t ask these [spoiler] questions but they ask anyway. You are really wasting your time, not mine, asking those questions.

When news of the Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures split over Spider-Man broke, we were going, “Oh no, is Tom Holland out of a job?”

(laughs) If only it were that simple.

It looks like Happy (Jon Favreau) and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) aren’t going to be together…

I don’t think Aunt May wants to be with Happy, now that I’m thinking about it.

The fans didn’t take the news well. Did their reaction surprise you?

I personally didn’t care as much as I feel like people wanted me to. I feel like the fans were very so invested in us as characters that they genuinely thought we were affected by it in a lot of ways. I find the support and love so great, like, without them, we wouldn’t be here. Them showing that much concern tells me that they really care.

You are very calm about the whole thing.

There’s so much more things to be done. We will not be making another Spider-Man movie for at least another a year-and-a-half. We got other things going on. I felt that there’s such an expectation of us to be shattered by this. It’s not that it erases all the experiences, friendships, and relationships we made.

Do you have a theory on how Spider-Man is going to be written out of the MCU?

Peter doesn’t have any other relationship with any other Avenger besides Tony Stark/Iron Man. In that sense, it won’t be that hard to write him out of the story. Then again, it’s like, you know, business. We [Sony] are still going to make our films, and Marvel Studios will continue to make theirs. That’s how the cards fell.

Hanging out: Jacob with his 'Spider-Man: Far From Home' pals Tom Holland and Zendaya at a promotion event at the Empire State Building on June 24, 2019.

It’ll be interesting to see the Spider-Man and Venom crossover.

It’ll give me the chance to meet Tom Hardy. That’ll be my dream. He’s super-cool and I would love that to happen. I think they would go really well together — they have a good hero and anti-hero dynamic.

Two Toms, too.

Yeah, there’s going to be really confusing. They both have the same initials TH. It’s really, like, how are you call them? We should call them by their character names.

Here’s a random question. When you and Tom were here two years ago, Tom said that while they were making Spider-Man: Homecoming in Atlanta, Jon Favreau would show him the best restaurants in town. What food tips did he give you?

What’s so funny is at that time, [we didn’t know that he was filming The Chef Show for Netflix]. He showed up with Chef Roy Choi and we went to this really good seafood place [ The Optimist] and Robert [Downey Jr] was there as well.

For the first 45 minutes, I wasn’t even sitting with them. I thought it was just Tom with him. Then they called me over to sit down with them. At that point, they were already serving dessert, so I kinda missed out on the earlier courses.

Listening in: Robert Downey Jr and Chef Roy Choi in the 'Avengers Atlanta' episode of 'The Chef Show'. Is that Jacob (highlighted) at the bar?

Really, Jon is so passionate about food. He made that film [Chef], with Scarlett Johansson, and that’s where the show stemmed from. Again, he’s a detail-oriented person. He enjoys watching the process of things being made and food is sort of like that for him.

Jon Favreau is also the showrunner of the Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. There’s always the Star Wars universe to consider…

I feel that I’ve been talking so much that he has to hear us at some point. But I feel like I’ve never talked to him about business. When we are around, we talked about life and what’s going on.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is now on digital and DVD/Blu-ray. Do you still have a DVD/Blu-ray collection?

I’m lucky enough to grow up at a time when DVD was a thing. My sister, brother and cousins have a big DVD collection. DVD is not a nostalgia thing for me. Because of the Internet, you can just buy it online and you don’t need to buy a physical copy from the shops anymore — you just buy or streaming it online.

DVD is one of those things that I can hold close to me, like memorabilia. It’s something you can hold in your hand, look at it and admire it, as opposed to having [the movie stored in] your phone.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is now on VOD on Singtel TV. The Chef Show is now streaming on Netflix.

Jacob's Photos: Aik Chen/8 DAYS/ Additional photos: Sony Pictures Entertainment, TPG News/Click Photos