Tom Hollander and his very honest diary of a bored actor
CeLeBRITIeS are usually swift to brag about their wholesome lifestyles encompassing everything from trendy diets to yoga sessions.
But Tom Hollander has broken the mould with a decidedly unrefined account of his daily routine of sleeping pills, daytime dozing and hours on his phone.
In a newspaper column widely applauded on social media, the actor noted that ‘owing to forces beyond my control, life has not been as busy as it used to be’.
He then told of long days that took in over-hearty breakfasts, TV watching... and self-pleasuring.
He revealed he wakes up around 3am or 4am every day to go to the loo, when he uses his ‘phone screen to illuminate the target’. He said he will then ‘often take half a sleeping pill (antihistamine), turn on the World Service very quietly and try to go to sleep again’.
The 53-year- old actor puts on Radio 4’ s Today programme when he wakes again ‘between 6 and 8am’.
Hollander, who is in a relationship with interior designer Fran Hickman, 36, said that after waking up they ‘ hold each other in different positions’ or, if he has spent the night alone, he hugs a pillow while ‘continuing to listen to the bad news’.
He revealed the couple cook porridge while looking at their phones, then eat it in ‘ such large quantities’ as to ‘negate any nutritional benefits’.
After his girlfriend has gone to work and he has stretched and made his first coffee of the day, he said he looks at himself in the mirror to ‘try to see what others see’.
The actor, currently starring in the BBC mini series Us, said he likes to ‘examine my bald patch, weigh myself and pull my stomach in. Then let it out. Then pull it in again.’
Writing in The Sunday Times’ A Life in the Day column, he added: ‘If I’m feeling positive I might get dressed at this point and go for my second coffee on the street below.’
Having lived in his flat in Notting Hill, west London, for 20 years, he greets shopkeepers and stallholders near his home by name.
After checking in with his agent on the phone, who he said rarely has news for him, Hollander then has a ‘midmorning nap’ followed by the ‘preparation of lunch’. He said: ‘Whatever I make for lunch I eat too much of, which makes me feel a bit lethargic, so I make some more coffee and turn off the radio as The Archers starts so I’m ready to begin the second half of the day.’
He added afternoons are for ‘hobbies and extracurricular activities’, which can range from cycling along the canal to less savoury pastimes. His other afternoon activities include speculating on the ‘ extraordinary injustice of Philip Green’s knighthood’ or checking out ‘that app that tells you which celebrity you most resemble (Tom Hardy)’.
Hollander said: ‘From about 5pm, assuming I haven’t mislaid my house keys or mobile phone, it’s possible to surf through the rest of the day on the news feed while preparing food, eating it and digesting through Newsnight.
‘Then it’s time to go to sleep again. Cracking a little sleeping pill in half in case I need it later, I turn on the radio very quietly. If my girlfriend’s there we hold each other in various shapes. If she’s not I put my arms around a pillow.’
The actor, who starred in The Night Manager and Gosford Park, was praised on Twitter for his column.
One fan wrote that it was an antidote to ‘tedious healthy living warriors’, while another called it ‘quite brilliant’.
‘Not as busy as it used to be’