'Spider-Man' producer warned Tom Holland and Zendaya to avoid dating after they were cast as Peter Parker and MJ: 'Don't go there'

• The "Spider-Man" producer Amy Pascal said she warned Tom Holland and Zendaya not to date.
• She told The New York Times that she gave them each a "lecture" after they were cast.

The "Spider-Man" producer Amy Pascal said that she cautioned Tom Holland and Zendaya against dating in real life when they landed their roles as Peter Parker and MJ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"I took Tom and Zendaya aside, separately, when we first cast them and gave them a lecture. Don't go there — just don't. Try not to," Pascal, a former Sony executive, said in a recent interview with The New York Times.

"I gave the same advice to Andrew and Emma. It can just complicate things, you know? And they all ignored me," she added.

Pascal's comment was prompted when the interviewer, Brooks Barnes, mentioned that past "Spider-Man" costars had real-life romances — Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy and Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" movies.

Maguire and Dunst portrayed iconic comic-book love interests Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson in Raimi's films released between 2002 and 2007. They had a brief romance while working on the first film.

"I actually had some worries about that," Raimi told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007 after the release of "Spider-Man 3."

"They apparently began dating with each other, I think, in the middle of the first movie ... although I didn't know it at the time," he said. "They eventually broke up before the second movie. I was concerned they wouldn't get the same chemistry back, but it was just me worrying."

History repeated itself when Garfield and Stone were cast as the love interests Parker and Gwen Stacy in Sony and Marvel's Spidey reboot.

Back in 2012, when "The Amazing Spider-Man" was released, Garfield told MTV News that he was "so happy" when Stone was cast.

"Those are the days I'd look forward to, you know? For Peter as well, because Peter goes through some horrible stuff in the movie. There's some joy to be had when experiencing his first love," he said.

In a Teen Vogue interview that year, the actor vividly recalled his first interaction with Stone.

"It was like I woke up when she came in," Garfield said, describing it as "diving into white-water rapids and having no desire to hang on to the side."

"Throughout shooting, it was wild and exciting. I couldn't help but try to stay with her, keep pace with her, and not let her get away," he added.

Stone and Garfield split in 2015, the year after "TASM 2" was released in theaters. Since then, Garfield has continued to voice support for Stone, telling Vanity Fair in 2017: "We care about each other so much, and that's a given, that's kind of this unconditional thing."

"I'm her biggest fan as an artist," he said later.

Holland, the latest actor to portray the web slinger, met Zendaya during her "Spider-Man: Homecoming" screen test for the role of MJ.

The stars denied romance rumors for years, but in July, they were photographed kissing in a car.

In a cover story for GQ's Men of the Year issue, Holland said that he and Zendaya "sort of felt robbed of our privacy" when paparazzi took photos of them.

"One of the downsides of our fame is that privacy isn't really in our control anymore, and a moment that you think is between two people that love each other very much is now a moment that is shared with the entire world," he said.

"Loving someone is a sacred thing and a special thing and something that you want to deal with and go through and experience and enjoy amongst the two people that love each other," Zendaya told the publication.