Tom Hollander reveals he was mistaken for Tom Holland and sent his seven-figure bonus for The Avengers
British actor Tom Hollander shares a similar surname to Spider-Man star Tom Holland
Tom Hollander has revealed that he is often mistaken for Tom Holland and that he once received his seven-figure box office bonus for his role in The Avengers.
The 56-year-old British actor, who shares a similar surname to the Spider-Man star is best known for his roles in films including the 2005 adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, Pirates of the Caribbean, Bohemian Rhapsody, the Emmy-award winning White Lotus, and the Bafta award-winning BBC series, The Night Manager.
Hollander shared the bonus mix-up with Late Night host Seth Meyers, after he was asked whether he was ever mistaken for the other Hollywood star.
He said: “Yeah, it’s been very difficult, cause, you know, I was here first. But he’s enormously famous." Hollander clarified that the pair "obviously" weren't confused as one other in person, but that their similar names had caused issues on occasions.
Hollander continued: "I’m introduced to somebody’s very excited, then very confused and disappointed children. And people in the accounts department of my agency got confused."
The Night Manager star revealed that he had briefly shared the same agency as Holland, recounting the "terrible" moment on a day when he was feeling happy with his £30,000 pay check for a BBC show, checked his emails and found a message from his agency letting him know his first box-office bonus from The Avengers film had come through.
He said: "I went to see my friend who was doing theatre in England. I sat smugly in the audience just having done a BBC show for £30,000… the interval came and I checked my email and I got one from the agency saying, 'Payment slip for first box office bonus for ‘The Avengers.'" Adding, he thought to himself, "I don’t think I’m in ‘The Avengers."
Hollander continued: "It was an astonishing amount of money. It was not his salary, it was his first box-office bonus. Not the whole box-office bonus, the first one. And it was more money than I’d ever... it was a seven-figure sum. He was 20, or something. So my feeling of smugness that you remember I had in the first half disappeared completely. But that’s showbiz!"
Hollander was appearing on Late Night With Seth Meyers to talk about his upcoming performance as Truman Capote in Ryan Murphy’s anthology drama Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, which premiered at the Plaza Hotel in New York last night (January 24).