Holland v Hollander: One a Hollywood heart-throb of Spiderman fame, the other a 56-year-old thespian whose 'life in the day' article about peeing, sex and sleeping pills went viral..after the £1m Avengers bonus mix-up, here's how to tell the difference

One’s the talk of tinsel town, a tentpole franchise movie star with an A-list girlfriend and perfect tousled hair.

The other’s an aging thespian who counts ‘peeing in the dark’ and ‘masturbating on rainy days’ as staples of his routine.

One’s a Hollywood hearthrob who packed on 15lb of muscle in six weeks to play a superhero, and the other’s a man who once prepared for the role of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas by living on a diet of ‘chips, pizza, deep fried pork balls and rice.’

We are talking of course about Tom Holland, 27, (best known for Spiderman) and Tom Hollander, 56, (forever immortalised as the pragmatic and sensitive Cutler Becket in the Pirates of the Caribbean films).

The two stars live lives that are world’s apart but are forever bonded by their height, with neither man standing taller than 5’8, and of course by their names, which aside from a rogue ‘er’ are identical.

This similarity it has now emerged once led to Hollander receiving Holland’s Avengers pay slip by mistake, a final indignation of sorts.

One’s the talk of tinsel town, a tentpole franchise movie star with an A-list Hollywood girlfriend and perfect tousled hair and the other’s an aging thespian who counts ‘peeing in the dark’ and ‘masturbating on rainy days’ as staples of his routine

Tom Hollander, 56, (left) and Tom Holland, 27, (right) are forever bonded by their names, which aside from a rogue ‘er’ are identical

Tom Holland maintains a strict fitness regime whilst preparing for his roles in superhero films

Tom Hollander embraced the grease for his role as Dylan Thomas in a BBC programme

Speaking on Wednesday’s Late Night With Seth Meyers, Hollander admitted it was ‘very difficult’ to get mistaken for Tom Holland

The White Lotus actor admitted that nearly identical spellings of their names led to the unfortunate mix up, though he joked that people only confused him for Holland in a ‘nonvisual context.’

Speaking on Wednesday’s Late Night With Seth Meyers, Hollander admitted it was ‘very difficult’ to get mistaken for Tom Holland — who is 29 years younger than him — because he ‘was here first.’

He admitted to marveling at how enormous Holland’s pay slip was, despite being only a small portion of his Avengers compensation.

Hollander explained that the mix up with the pay slip occurred during a period when both actors were ‘briefly’ represented by the same talent agency.

The In The Loop star was initially flying high after he went to see a friend who was performing in a Chekhov play for only about £300 per week.

He was gloating at his seemingly superior position, as he had just received a paycheck for ’30 grand’ for starring in a BBC production.

He planned to ‘slightly patronise’ his friend when they met up later, but he was distracted when he checked his emails at intermission and saw one from the agency advising him on his ‘first box office bonus for The Avengers.’

‘And I thought, “I don’t think I’m in the Avengers,”‘ he recalled to laughter from the studio audience.

Hollander added that it was ‘an astonishing amount of money.’

Tom Holland is in a relationship with his Spiderman co-star Zendaya

Tom Hollander is engaged to his fiancé Fran Hickman (pictured together)

But he clarified that the pay slip wasn’t for the Spider-Man star’s salary, but only for his ‘first box office bonus.’

He hilariously revealed: ‘Not the whole box office. The first one,’ he emphasized comically.  And it was more money than I’ve ever — it was a seven-figure sum!’

Meyers jumped in to joke that the sum was so large that ‘they had to send it in two emails.’

Hollander added bitterly that the superhero star was only ’20 or something’ at the time.

‘So, my feeling of smugness that you remember I had in the first half [of the play] disappeared very quickly,’ he said with a deadpan expression.

‘But that’s showbiz,’ he added.

The two actors do at least both live in London, although Holland in vastly more salubrious digs.

The Spiderman star recently finished renovating his £3million West London mansion which reportedly has a cinema and a sauna.

Hollander meanwhile lives in a flat above a shop in Notting Hill that he has owned  for the last 20 years.

Although Hollander isn’t as well known as Tom Holland, he has appeared in several major films, including the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice, and he played Lord Cutler Beckett in the massively popular Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.

He also had acclaimed roles in Gosford Park, In The Loop, The Night Manager and the second season of The White Lotus.

In 2020, the actor went viral after his self-effacing take on a day in the life piece for the Sunday Times.

Tom Hollander was immortalised as as the pragmatic and sensitive Cutler Becket in the Pirates of the Caribbean films

Tom Holland’s most famous role is that of Spiderman in Marvel’s Avengers films

Although he’s not as famous as Tom Holland, Hollander has appeared in the enormously popular Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise and season two of The White Lotus, and he has a bevy of other acclaimed roles under his belt; pictured Tuesday in NYC

Tom Hollander’s ‘life in the day’ article went viral as he discussed peeing in the dark, sleeping pills and masturbation

While legions of celebrities have written for the weekly feature and kept things fairly tame, Hollander was lauded by fans for discussing peeing in the dark, sleeping pills and masturbation.

He wrote: ‘I wake up generally at 3 or 4am. Not because I’m like Margaret Thatcher, but because I need to pee.

‘I pee in the darkness using my phone screen to illuminate the target, then often take half a sleeping pill (antihistamine), turn on the World Service very quietly and try to go to sleep.’

After discussing holding his girlfriend in different positions, or the pillow if she is absent, he examined his bald patch, weighs himself and pulls his stomach in.

And if that wasn’t enough of an insight, he pens: ‘If it’s sunny I might go for a cycle ride down the canal, if it’s raining I might masturbate or doze.’

Hollander’s next major project is the second season of FX’s acclaimed series Feud, which was created by Ryan Murphy, Jaffe Cohen and Michael Zam.

In the new season, subtitled Capote vs. The Swans, he stars as the eponymous writer Truman Capote.

The show traces his friendships with several New York City– based socialites who later vowed to make his life miserable after he wrote thinly veiled and often unflattering portraits of them in his unfinished novel Answered Prayers, which was published posthumously in 1986, two years after Capote’s death.

Capote began writing the novel in the late 1960s, and he eventually published four excerpted chapters to Esquire in the mid-’70s, though he was believed to have given up on the long-gestating project later that decade.