Celebrity

White Lotus star Tom Hollander mistakenly received Tom Holland's Avengers payslip: 'An astonishing amount'

"It was more money than I've ever — it was a seven-figure sum," the actor recalled.

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Published on January 24, 2024 03:54PM EST

What's in a name? For Tom Hollander and fellow actor Tom Holland, the answer might be a few digits on a paycheck.

On Monday's episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers, Hollander — the 56-year-old British actor with credits including The White Lotus and Pride & Prejudice — recalled the humbling time his agency mistook him for the similarly named Holland and accidentally sent him the Marvel star's Avengers payslip.

"I went to see my friend who was doing theater in England for 300 pounds a week, you know, but doing great work, Chekhov, and I sat smugly in the audience having just done a BBC show for 30 grand or something which was, you know, going to get me through the next year or so," Hollander recalled. "And I was thinking, 'Well this is marvelous. I'm very prosperous, but my good friend Peter is doing this great play and I'm going to go afterwards and see him and slightly patronize him and say how wonderful it was.'"

Tom Hollander and Tom Holland.
Arturo Holmes/WireImage; Lionel Hahn/Getty

Everything was going great until he checked his phone during intermission. "I thought I'd check my emails, and I got an email from the agency saying, 'Payment advice slip: Your first box office bonus for The Avengers,'" Hollander said. "And I thought, 'I don't think I'm in The Avengers.'"

The hefty sum surprised him even further.

"It was an astonishing amount of money," Hollander marveled. "And it was not his salary, it was his first box office bonus. Not the whole box office, the first one. And it was more money than I've 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 very quickly."

Hollander also quipped that it's been "very difficult" nearly sharing a name with Holland as his popularity skyrocketed in recent years.

"Obviously I don't actually get mistaken for him, but in non-visual contexts I am mistaken for him all the time," he said. "So like, talking to utility companies, they just, 'And what’s your name?' And they go, 'Tom Holland?' Because they've heard 'Tom Holland.' Tom Holland? I go, 'No, it's Tom Hollander.'"

Somtimes, he said, "I'm introduced to somebody's very, very excited, then confused, then disappointed children. They go, 'My children are so excited to meet you.' And I go, 'Are they, though?'"

He continued: "They come out and they go, 'Where is he? Where is he?' And they go, 'No, no.'"

But hey, it could be worse — at least there's no Tom Hollandest in the mix.

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