The nonchalance of Tom Hollander

I spend the first few minutes of my Zoom call with actor Tom Hollander looking at either a black screen or his duvet. He’s connected from his phone rather than his laptop, and as we deal with these technical difficulties, I hear the first of his characteristically dry and pithy remarks. “No sniggering at my incompetence,” he tells his agent. Hollander’s dry wit makes him a brilliant though intimidating interviewee. It’s a common thread to his work, too. You get the impression that the actor is at his best in a role full of Hollander-isms. “If [casting directors] get the chemistry of the actor and the character right, then the actor suddenly becomes capable of levitating.” That’s on full display in his sitcom Rev, where Hollander plays a perpetually disgruntled vicar. It’s even palpable in his recurring role as Cutler Beckett in Pirates of the Caribbean. In both cases, his distinctive presence prevents his characters from becoming mere archetypes, even within a blockbuster franchise. 

Hollander is something of a golden boy for British wit, but he’s also inherited our love of modesty. Despite having a career spanning thirty years, and roles in everything from Pride and Prejudice to Jesse Armstrong’s In the Loop, Hollander sees himself as one of those faces that people recognize, but can’t quite place. He describes his career as “cumulative”: “‘Oh, it’s him again. Oh, I think I saw him in that’,” he muses, capturing his widespread yet understated presence in the industry. 

Hollander has a penchant for being self-effacing, but if his view of his career were accurate, the tide is most definitely turning. He’s fresh off a seminal role in Ryan Murphy’s Feud, where he transformed into novelist Truman Capote. That followed closely on the heels of his portrayal of Quentin, one of the “evil gays” in The White Lotus.

The actor might never reach the ostensible peak of stardom (“It’s very unlikely that anyone’s going to be lobbying to have me at the Met Gala in something see-through”), but it seems he doesn’t really want to. “I don’t have those levels of energy,” he tells me. When I spoke to the actor, we looked back on his career, talked Truman Capote, and reflected on being a miserable Brit.

Amber Rawlings: You’re a recognisable face in film and TV. How was it taking on the role in Feud, where you’re more hidden by the physicality of Truman Capote? 

Tom Hollander: Interesting question, and an interesting way of putting it. It was a wonderful opportunity, is what it felt like. Nobody’s asked me to play a big American part before, and I suppose I hadn’t been asked to transform like that. It felt like a big challenge. It was nerve racking at the beginning. 

This excerpt was taken from HUNGER Issue 31: The Dreamers. Full story is available in stores worldwide now.