Tom Hollander Biography
Thomas Anthony Hollander (/ˈhɒləndər/; born 25 August 1967) is a British actor who has gained success for his roles on stage and screen, winning BAFTA and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Hollander trained with National Youth Theatre and won the Ian Charleson Award in 1992 for his performance as Witwoud in The Way of the World. He made his Broadway debut in the David Hare play The Judas Kiss in 1998. His performance as Henry Carr in a revival of the Tom Stoppard play Travesties earned nominations for both the Olivier and Tony.
Hollander gained attention portraying Mr. Collins in the 2005 Joe Wright film Pride & Prejudice, and as Lord Cutler Beckett in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Other film roles include Gosford Park (2001), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), Valkyrie (2008), In the Loop (2009), Hanna (2011), About Time (2013), The Invisible Woman (2013), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015), and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).
In television, Hollander starred in BBC sitcom Rev. (2010–2014), which he co-wrote. He received the 2011 BAFTA Award for best sitcom for the series. His performance in the BBC series The Night Manager earned the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. Hollander portrayed King George V in The Lost Prince (2001), King George III in the HBO miniseries John Adams (2008), and Truman Capote in the FX on Hulu series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024). Other credits include Doctor Thorne (2016), The White Lotus (2022), and Harley Quinn (2020–present).
Early life and education
Thomas Anthony Hollander was born on 25 August 1967 in Bristol and was raised in Oxford. Hollander's father is a Czech Jew whose family converted to Catholicism, and his mother is English. Hollander was brought up as a Christian. The family background was academic and musical: his grandfather, Hans Hollander, was a musicologist who wrote books about the composer Janáček. Hollander's parents were teachers, his father running the science department at a school in Oxford.
He attended the Dragon School, and then Abingdon School, both in Oxfordshire, where he was chief chorister. As a youngster, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre and the National Youth Music Theatre (then known as the Children's Music Theatre). In 1981, at the age of 14, he won the lead role in a BBC dramatisation of Leon Garfield's John Diamond.
Hollander read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge, earning a 2:2 degree. He was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and was president of the Marlowe Society. Sam Mendes, a friend and fellow student, directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of Cyrano de Bergerac (which also featured future Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg).
Career
1981–1999: Early roles and Broadway debut
Hollander made his television debut at the age of 14 acting in the television film John Diamond (1981). Hollander won the 1992 Ian Charleson Award for his performance as Witwoud in The Way of the World at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. He had been nominated and commended the previous year for his Celia in an all-male production of As You Like It for Cheek by Jowl, and was again nominated and commended for his Khlestakov in The Government Inspector at the Almeida Theatre in 1997. He had also received a special commendation for his 1996 performance of the *le role in Tartuffe at the Almeida Theatre. In all, Hollander has been the most frequent Ian Charleson Award honoree, with four appearances at the awards: one win, two commendations and one special commendation. In 1996 he made his Broadway debut acting in David Hare's The Judas Kiss portraying Lord Alfred Douglas opposite Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde.
Hollander's other early roles in television include Jonathan in the BBC drama series Harry (1993 to 1995), Paolo Ferruzzi in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1996), and Osborne Hamley in the BBC miniseries Wives and Daughters (1999). Hollander made his film debut in 1996 film Some Mother's Son starring Helen Mirren about the 1981 Irish hunger strike. That same year he starred in the sports drama True Blue (1996). He then acted in the British romantic comedy Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence (1998), and the comedy drama Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), and the comedy The Clandestine Marriage (1999).
2000–2015: Character roles and Rev.
In 2001 Hollander acted in Robert Altman's British murder mystery Gosford Park and Michael Apted's thriller Enigma. In 2003 he portrayed George V in the BBC One film The Lost Prince and Guy Burgess in the BBC Two miniseries Cambridge Spies. He had a memorable role as Mr. Collins in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (2005), a film adaptation of the Jane Austen novel of the same name. for which he received the Evening Standard Film Awards Comedy Award, and London Critics Circle Best Supporting Actor. He has worked repeatedly with Michael Gambon and Bill Nighy, and is a good friend of James Purefoy. Although highly respected as a character actor and the recipient of several awards, many of Hollander's films will still play on his height (5' 5" / 165:cm). Hollander has created several memorable comedic characters that draw more on his physical energy and intensity than his height, such as the "brilliantly foul-mouthed" Leon in BBC Two's Freezing, described in The Times as a "braying swirl of ego and mania".
Hollander has undertaken a number of voice roles for BBC Radio, including Mosca in 2004's Volpone for BBC Radio 3, Frank Churchill in Jane Austen's Emma and as Mr Gently Benevolent in the pilot of the Dickensian parody Bleak Expectations for BBC Radio 4, although he did not take part in the full series. He has voiced a young Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man", a disembodied head named Enzio in an urban gothic comedy and Leon Theremin, the Russian inventor famous for the electronic instrument that bears his name. He provided the vocal texture for Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange recently with a "smooth, almost lyrical, crisp voice" that accomplished the task of rendering the extensive and unique slang of the book instantly understandable to readers. Since 2008, he has written an occasional diary-style column for The Spectator, and a lifestyle article in the The Times, which received positive reader comments.
Hollander portrayed Lord Cutler Beckett, the "heavy" in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. He also appeared in the TNT miniseries The Company as Kim Philby, having previously played Guy Burgess in the BBC's Cambridge Spies. Hollander returned to the stage in 2007 with the premiere of Joe Penhall's play Landscape with Weapon at the Royal National Theatre. In 2008, Hollander made a notable cameo appearance as King George III in the HBO mini-series John Adams, and ended the year as a memorable Colonel Heinz Brandt in Valkyrie. In 2009, Hollander played a symphonic cellist in Joe Wright's movie The Soloist, his second film with Wright, who cast him to great effect as the fevered suitor Mr. Collins in 2005's Pride and Prejudice. Hollander has worked once more with Wright, portraying a memorably flamboyant and menacing villain in Hanna (2011). Hollander appeared in a lead role in Armando Iannucci's In the Loop as Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster MP. Hollander later made a surprise appearance (in a different role) at the end of the third series of The Thick of It, the programme on which In the Loop was based.
In 2010, Hollander and writer James Wood co-created the TV series Rev., a sensitive comedy about the all-too-human vicar of an inner-city parish. Hollander played the sympathetic *le character, Rev. Adam Smallbone. The show won a BAFTA in 2011 for Best Situation Comedy, among other awards and recognition. A second series aired in the UK on BBC 2 in 2011 and a third series in 2014. In 2010, Hollander returned to the live stage in a demanding comedic dual role in Georges Feydeau's A Flea in Her Ear at the Old Vic. Playing both master and servant with "lightning physical precision and shockingly true confusion", Hollander's was called "a virtuoso performance".
2016–2019: Travesties and The Night Manager
Between September and November 2016 he starred as (a "career-best") Henry Carr in Patrick Marber's "superb revival" of Tom Stoppard's Travesties at the Menier Chocolate Factory. The play (with the same cast) transferred to the Apollo Theatre in February 2017 and was nominated for five Olivier Awards including Best Actor (Hollander) and Best Revival (Travesties). Marber's revival transferred to Broadway in 2018, with Hollander reprising his leading role as Carr. The play opened on 24 April 2018 (with previews from 29 March) at the Roundabout Theatre Company's American Airlines Theatre in New York. Hollander received a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play nomination for the production.
In 2016 he played Lance "Corky" Corkoran in the AMC miniseries The Night Manager acting opposite Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman, and Elizabeth Debicki. For his performance he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor. That same year he acted in the BBC / FX 2017 series Taboo playing the "inebriated and endearing, menacing and beguiling" chemist, Dr George Cholmondeley. The A.V. Club described him as "giving a mastercl* on how to create dimension and personality, even with limited screen time." Hollander played Queen's second manager Jim Beach in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which was released in November 2018. Upon the firing of director Bryan Singer from the film in December 2017, it was reported Hollander had previously left the film due to issues with Singer; he was ultimately convinced to continue, though whether this was due to Singer's exit is unknown. Hollander played Tabaqui, a hyena in Andy Serkis' 2018 film Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. That same year he acted in the war drama A Private War (2018) and the Netflix thriller Bird Box (2018).
More recent readings include The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling. In 2015 (repeated in April 2017), he played Patrick Moore in the BBC radio play Far Side of the Moore about the astronomer and his TV series The Sky at Night. In May 2016, he portrayed Geoff Cathcart in Andy Mulligan's four-part play School Drama on BBC Radio 4, which was chosen by The Guardian for that week's best radio selections. In October that year, he narrated Peter Bradshaw's short story Reunion, broadcast on Radio 4. He has also portrayed the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich in Margy Kinmonth's do*entary Revolution: New Art for a New World, which was released in the UK and Ireland in November 2016.
2020–present: Career expansion
Since 2020 he has voiced Alfred Pennyworth in the animated series Harley Quinn on HBO Max. In 2021 he portrayed multiple roles as George V, Wilhelm II, and Nicholas II of Russia in the spy action drama The King's Man. The following year he voiced The Mole in the animated short The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022) which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. In 2022 he played Major Dalby, director of WOOC(P) in the ITV cold war drama series The Ipcress File and played Quentin a wealthy gay British expat living in Sicily in the second season of The White Lotus. From 2022 to 2023, Hollander returned to the Almeida Theatre to play the lead role of Boris Berezovsky in the inaugural run of Patriots, a play by Peter Morgan about the late Russian oligarch's life. In 2024 he portrayed author Truman Capote in the FX on Hulu limited series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.
Charity work
Hollander has contributed his running and cycling efforts to several charitable causes, including running to raise funds for the Childline Crisis Hotline in 2006 and in 2007, for the Teenage Cancer Trust. He is a long-time supporter of the Helen & Douglas House Hospice for Children and Young Adults in Oxford, which provides hospice care for children. He continues to support charitable organisations by contributing readings and other appearances throughout the year.
Hollander is a patron of the British Independent Film Awards and has supported the efforts of the Old Vic's "24 Hour Plays New Voices" Gala, which forwards the cause of young writers for the British stage. In August 2014, he was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.
Personal life
Hollander's sister is director, writer and singer Julia Hollander. The siblings, and their father Tony Hollander, presented a BBC Radio 3 do*entary in 2020, exploring the story of how Tony and his parents escaped from the imminent National Socialist German Workers' Party occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938. A letter from a BBC radio sound engineer saved his father's life.
Hollander has lived in the same flat in Notting Hill, west London, since 2000.
In 2010 he became engaged to interior designer Fran Hickman. In 2023 they had a son, who is Hollander's first child.
In January 2016, he became an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge.
Filmography
Film
Television
Theatre
Audiobooks
Video games
Awards and nominations
See also
- List of Old Abingdonians
References
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tom Hollander.- Tom Hollander at IMDb
