Failed romances and party lifestyle of sex thimble Tom Hollander
THE diminutive star of Sunday night telly has reined in his partying ways to make the big time.
Tom Hollander is currently wowing audiences in BBC’s The Night Manager and ITV’s Doctor Thorne, which last weekend pulled in joint ratings of 10million.
And while the 5ft 4in actor is only just making it big on TV, he’s already had a starring role on the party circuit.
Tom’s A-list celebrity pals include Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson and Hollywood director Sam Mendes.
He also has a string of glamorous exes including socialites Daphne Guinness, 48, and upper-crust interior designer Fran Hickman, 32. A relationship with heiress Jemima Goldsmith, 42, hit the rocks around the time she met comic Russell Brand.
And while Tom, 48, is open about wanting to settle down and start a family, he admitted recently: “I am single. Acting can make it hard to have profound
relationships if you’re not careful.
“You get into this pattern of three-month, four-month jobs and what’s the next adventure.”
Close friends, however, suggest his behaviour off screen might have something to do with his failure to find a long-lasting relationship.
One young woman told The Sun how she was once approached by the actor at a celebrity-filled fashion bash in Shoreditch, East London.
She revealed: “He’s been a regular on the London party scene for a while and is always a gregarious figure right at the centre of attention.
“A few months ago I saw him and he came over to introduce himself to our group of girls in their early 20s.
“I recognised him and at first, thought it was quite funny to hear him using corny chat-up lines.”
Tom is the first to admit his party days got out of hand and he has made a decision to tone it down.
He said: “I don’t go to quite so many these days. Eventually you think, ‘Come on, better be a bit more serious’.
"There’s a sort of party circuit in London which eventually you notice is full of people who somehow are escaping themselves and everyone else by being in a room full of others, ironically. It’s a way of avoiding intimacy.”
Tom’s romantic disasters started early, when he fancied a school friend who didn’t return his affections.
He revealed: “I had a big crush on a friend who was a girl but that was unrequited. She was the first to say, ‘We better not go out together, it’ll spoil our friendship’. A standard line but it was true in that case — we’re still friends and I’m godfather to her child.”
But while his flirting hasn’t secured a girlfriend, it has worked for his career. He is candid about using it to get acting roles — but by impressing gay men rather than potential partners.
He once revealed: “For years I was accommodating when it came to my sexuality.
I didn’t feel particularly gay but I was half-pretty and boyish. A lot of gay people seemed to have influential positions in the theatre so I went along with it, up to a point.
“Soon this affected the parts I got. I graduated from restoration fops to actual gay people.
“To date I have pretended to be about 11 different gay men and one gay woman, essentially for financial gain.”
Although Tom — who also stars in BBC comedy Rev — is charming and outgoing, friends say the star is very sensitive about his height.
Tom has said: “I never thought of myself as being short. Being an actor has made me much more conscious of it than I would have been otherwise.
“Let’s be clear, I’d never have been on the list for James Bond so I’m not labouring under that misapprehension.”
For a man with a solid career in TV and film roles in Pirates of the Caribbean and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation to his name, he is surprisingly quick to take offence.
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He had a dramatic and very public falling out with Dame Joan Collins after they starred in The Clandestine Marriage together in 1999.