The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Yale alumna Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins SAG Award for role in ‘The Holdovers’
Yale University alumna Da’Vine Joy Randolph was honored by her fellow actors at this year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.
At Saturday’s ceremony, Randolph won the award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role, a category that also included Emily Blunt, Penélope Cruz, Jodie Foster and Danielle Brooks.
Randolph, 37, won for her performance as Mary Lamb in “The Holdovers,” where she plays the head cook at an elite New England boarding school and stars opposite Yale alumnus Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa.
“To be awarded this by my fellow artists is the greatest honor of my career,” she said in her acceptance speech at the SAG awards, an annual ceremony where the awards are voted on by members of the SAGAFTRA union.
In her acceptance speech, Randolph also expressed gratitude to all her former “brilliant” colleagues, whose talents have yet to be “properly acknowledged by the world.”
“For every actor out there still waiting in the wings for their chance, let me tell you: Your life can change in a day. And it is not a question of ‘if,’ but ‘when.’ Keep going,” she said.
The Philadelphia native received her masters degree from the Yale School of Drama in 2011. She also starred in the Yale Repertory
Theater’s production of “Servant of Two Masters,’ according to IMDB.
“What I’m grateful for is Yale taught us all the different styles of acting,” she said in an interview with People magazine in January. “That’s been such an aid for me in my career as I’ve worked with some pretty big-name people.”
After Yale, Randolph played Oda Mae Brown in the Broadway production of “Ghost: The Musical” and she received a 2012 Tony Award nomination for her performance. She later appeared in TV shows, “High Fidelity” and “Only Murders in the Building” and starred opposite Eddie Murphy in “Dolemite Is My Name,” among her other film credits.
In addition to Saturday’s
SAG Award, Randolph’s performance in “The Holdovers” has earned her a Golden Globe and The British Academy Film Award, as well as a 2024 Oscar nomination for best actress in a supporting role.
Randolph’s co-star Giamatti was also nominated for a SAG Award for his performance in the independent film. The actor grew up in New Haven and received both his bachelor’s and masters degrees from Yale University, where his father later served as a president.
Other SAG nominees with connections to Yale include Jodie Foster, who was nominated for her role in “Nyad.” She studied literature at Yale while working as an actor in the early 1980s. Other SAG nominees,
Tony Shalhoub and Kathryn Hahn, earned their masters degrees from the Yale School of Drama.
The cast of HBO’s “Succession” took home this year’s SAG Award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series. Among them is Yale alumnus, Jeremy Strong.
The cast of “The Bear” won the same award but for a comedy series. The cast includes Abby Elliot, the daughter of “Schitt’s Creek” actor Chris Elliott, who plays Sugar in the FX/Hulu original. Elliott grew up in Wilton and went to Immaculate High School in Danbury.