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Tom Hollander
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Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August, 1967) is an award-winning English actor who has appeared in productions such as Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, Oxfordshire and attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School. 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).
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Encyclopedia
Thomas Anthony "Tom" Hollander (born 25 August, 1967) is an award-winning English actor who has appeared in productions such as Enigma, Gosford Park, Cambridge Spies, Pride and Prejudice and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Biography
Early life
Tom Hollander was born in Bristol and raised in Oxford, Oxfordshire and attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School. 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 fourteen years of age, he was awarded the lead role in a BBC dramatization of Leon Garfield's John Diamond. He read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge while actively participating in the many extracurricular theatre activities that Cambridge University offers. He was a member of the Footlights and the president of the Marlowe Society. Fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays while they were at Cambridge, including a critically acclaimed production of Cyrano de Bergerac. After finishing university and failing to secure a place at a drama school, he found work in theatre nevertheless.
Career
Hollander won the 1992 Ian Charleson Award for his performance in The Way of the World at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. He had been nominated the previous year, and was again nominated for his performances in The Government Inspector in 1997.
Hollander's film and television appearances include Absolutely Fabulous, Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence, Wives and Daughters, Harry, Gosford Park, The Lost Prince and Pride and Prejudice 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 his films will still poke fun at 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 "brillantly foul-mouthed" Leon in BBC Two's Freezing, described in the Times as a "braying swirl of ego and mania".
Like other experienced actors in Britain, Hollander has lent his vocal talents to a number of roles for BBC radio including Mosca in 2004's Volpone for Radio 3, and Frank Churchill in Jane Austen's Emma for Radio 4. He has voiced a young Joseph Merrick, the "Elephant Man"; a disembodied head named Enzio in an urban gothic comedy and recently, 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.
Hollander provided a curious blend of sophistication and petty cruelty as Lord Cutler Beckett, the "heavy" in parts II and III of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. From the popular films, he returned to the stage with the premiere of Joe Penhall's play Landscape with Weapon at the The Royal National Theatre. The play tracks the disintegration of an ordinary man realizing the consequences of his life's work, and his performance was hailed as "the best performance of a 'real' character ever to grace the National Theatre stage." He also appeared in the TNT miniseries The Company as Adrian 'Kim' Philby. In 2008 he made a notable cameo appearance as King George III in the HBO mini-series John Adams, and ended the year as a memorable Col. Heinz Brandt in Valkyrie.
In 2009, Tom Hollander will play a symphonic cellist in Joe Wright's The Soloist. It is his second outing for Wright, who cast him to great effect as the fevered suitor, Mr. Collins in 2005's Pride and Prejudice. Hollander will appear in a lead role in Armando Iannucci's In the Loop, due to open January 22 at the Sundance Film Festival.
Hollander lives in Notting Hill, London.
Selected Filmography
External links
- Tom Hollander's Career at
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