“Everyone was always telling her, your life sounds like a movie,” says Hollander. She lost her left eye in 2001 covering the Sri Lankan Civil War and was the first to interview Muammar Gaddafi after the 1985 U.S. That’s one of the wonderful things about acting I felt I could honor her memory in some way.”Ĭolvin died in 2012 while covering a military confrontation in Syria, but even before that, her adventures were legendary.

And I was able to express my feelings for her by playing the part. What’s amazing is that I’ve ended up in a film about her, that’s amazing.

“She lived around me, we had some mutual friends. “It’s not that amazing,” he notes with a laugh. “A Private War” holds a special place in Hollander’s heart, as he actually knew Colvin personally – something that shocks this interviewer, but not the unflappable Hollander. Eliot, Wilkie Collins, or Dylan Thomas, Hollander muses he may have played “more real people than fictional.” In fact, in 2003 alone he appeared in two roles that had previously been played by English actor Alan Bates – George V in “The Lost Prince” and Guy Burgess in “The Cambridge Spies.” Recalls Hollander with a laugh, “I remember meeting Alan Bates and he said, ‘You must stop playing my parts!’” In both of his current films, Hollander continues playing to his specialty: portraying real people.

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