Yale drama grads win big at Globes
Giamatti, Randolph honored for roles in ‘The Holdovers’
The school-based comedy/drama “The Holdovers” won Golden Globe Awards for two of its stars, both of whom attended the Yale School of Drama, now called the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.
Paul Giamatti won Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), while Da’vine Joy Randolph won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture. It was the sixth Golden Globes nomination and third win for Giamatti, who previously won for “John Adams” and “Barney’s Version,” and the first nomination and win for Randolph.
“I am thrilled to see Da’vine and Paul recognized for their beautiful work in ‘The Holdovers,’” said James Bundy, dean of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. “They are both beloved members of the DGSD/YALE Rep community whose accomplishments throughout their careers give joy to so many people. How wonderful that they can now receive this worldwide acknowledgment of their talents!”
In “The Holdovers,” Giamatti plays a curmudgeonly teacher at a New England boarding school who must spend time with a student who can’t go home for the holidays. Randolph plays Mary Lamb, a cafeteria administrator also staying at the otherwise shuttered school. She is mourning her son who died in the Vietnam War. “The Holdovers” is set in Massachusetts in 1970.
Giamatti was at Yale both as an undergraduate in the late 1980s and the graduate acting program in the early ‘90s. He was born in New Haven, where his father Angelo Bartlett “Bart” Giamatti was at the time a professor of comparative literature at Yale then later became the university’s president followed by the commissioner of Major League Baseball. The young Giamatti attended the Foote School in New Haven and Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford.
Choate is a private boarding school and day school not unlike the one depicted in “The Holdovers,” though the movie was filmed at five separate boarding schools in Massachusetts.
Giamatti’s film career began shortly after his 1994 graduation from the drama school. After scene-stealing work as a blowhard boss in the Howard Stern biopic “Private Parts,” he got major attention for work as varied as comic book writer Harvey Pekar in “American Splendor,” Sergeant Hill in Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” Limbo the gorilla in Tim Burton’s “Planet of the Apes” and Andy Kaufman’s partner in comedy crime Bob Zmuda in “Man on the Moon.” He won numerous awards for playing the distressed wine enthusiast Miles in “Sideways” (directed by Alexander Payne, who also did “The Holdovers”), won an Emmy (as well as a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award) for the miniseries “John Adams” and received an Academy Award nomination for “Cinderella Man.”
Randolph graduated from the drama school in 2011 and just a year later found herself nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway musical “Ghost.” Her dozens of movie and TV roles have ranged from Mahalia Jackson in “Rustin” and Lady Reed in “Dolemite is My Name” to Detective Donna Williams in “Only Murders in the Building” and Cherise in the “High Fidelity” series.
At Yale, both Giamatti and Randolph were able to avoid the stereotyping that young actors often face. Giamatti had starring roles as a wandering malcontent in “Peer Gynt,” an emotional clown in “Love of Three Oranges” and troubled men in several Chekhov plays. He delivered the “All the World’s a Stage” speech as Jacques in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1994, in an all-student-cast production that also featured future “The Wire,” “Lost” and “John Wick” actor Lance Reddick.
Years into his Hollywood stardom, Giamatti returned to the Yale Repertory Theatre to star in “Hamlet.” Bundy directed the production, which sold out its entire run before it opened and was praised by critics for its novel mature take on the play.
In 2011, Giamatti received a different sort of award: the firstever “Louis” award bestowed by the private New Haven club Mory’s which caters to the Yale community.
A banner with Giamatti’s face on it is part of the “New Haven Notables” series of short biographical posters of famous people that adorn buildings around the city.
Randolph also did Shakespeare and Chekhov at Yale, further distinguishing herself in experimental dramas such as Meg Miroshnik’s “A Portrait of the Woman as a Young Artist” and two plays by Sarah Ruhl: “Late: A Cowboy Song” and Ruhl’s fantastical adaptation of Virginia Woof ’s “Orlando.” She was in an important Yale revival of the musical “Jelly’s Last Jam” directed by then-student Patricia Mcgregor. She played the classical comic role of Clarice in a new version of Carlo Goldoni’s “The Servant of Two Masters” at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 2010.
In her acceptance speech, Randolph thanked Giamatti and co-star Dominic Sessa. When Giamatti’s turn at the podium came later, he returned the favor. He ended his speech with words that must have sounded good to those who taught him at Foote, Choate and Yale:
“It’s a movie about teachers. I play a teacher in it. My whole family, they’re teachers, all of ‘em, going back generations. Teachers are good people. Gotta respect them. They do a good thing. It’s a tough job. So this is for teachers as well.”