“The Holdovers”' Paul Giamatti Ends Wry Golden Globes Best Actor Speech with Poignant Praise for Teachers

Also nominated were Nicolas Cage, Timothée Chalamet, Matt Damon, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeffrey Wright

Paul Giamatti is cracking jokes and praising teachers as he wins at the 2024 Golden Globes.

In the running for best actor in a comedy or musical movie were Nicolas Cage for Dream Scenario, Timothée Chalamet for Wonka, Matt Damon for Air, Giamatti for The Holdovers, Joaquin Phoenix for Beau Is Afraid and Jeffrey Wright for American Fiction.

Giamatti, 56, joked in his speech, "Oh my gosh, so many stairs. Too many stairs. My knees are shot, I'm telling you. Up and down all night, standing up and sitting down all night, my knees. I’m never going to be in John Wick 5 at this rate."

"Surely this is the first time this award has been given to an actor who has played a man who smells like fish," he further quipped about his professor character.

After sharing some thank-yous, he said, "I want to give a shout-out to my son Samuel, who recently graduated from college. And it's a movie about a teacher. I play a teacher in it. My whole family, they’re teachers. All of them, going back generations."

He continued, "Teachers are good people. Gotta respect them. They do a good thing. It’s a tough job, so this is for teachers as well. Thanks, guys. Thank you."

Related: 2024 Golden Globe Awards: See the Full List of Winners

Giamatti’s 2024 Golden Globe nod for The Holdovers, his sixth with two previous wins, is special considering his first recognition was for Sideways in 2005 — the other he time he played leading man for filmmaker Alexander Payne (Election).

Reuniting after almost 20 years has proved a winning combination again, with the David Hemingson-written holiday hit also in the best comedy or musical movie race.

Costarring first-time actor Dominic Sessa and first-time Globe nominee — and winner — Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers features Giamatti as a stubborn (and cross-eyed) professor at a fictional New England boarding school in 1970. 

Also in the category was Cage, 59, who has now totaled five nods from the Golden Globes. Of those, he won once in 1996 for Leaving Las Vegas, a leading dramatic performance for which he also took home an Academy Award.

Dream Scenario features Cage as an ordinary biology professor who inexplicably begins appearing in multiple people’s dreams, strangers and acquaintances alike. It costars Julianne Nicholson as his wife, Tim Meadows as his colleague and Michael Cera as his PR manager.

Related: Nicolas Cage Says It's 'Always a Good Thing' When His Late Father Appears in His Dreams (Exclusive)

His third Golden Globe nod in only a handful of years, Chalamet, 28, leads Willy Wonka origin story Wonka, from director and co-writer Paul King (Paddington). Costarring Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Colman and Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa, it’s a musical movie that serves as an origin story for the beloved chocolatier from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Chalamet has also been Golden Globe-nominated for 2018’s Call Me By Your Name and 2019’s Beautiful Boy. For the former, he notched an Oscar nomination as well. He’ll next reprise his role as Paul Atreides in Dune: Part Two and play Bob Dylan in an upcoming biopic.

Related: Timothée Chalamet's Wonka Vocal Coach Says He's 'Naturally Musical' and 'Mesmerizing' in the Role (Exclusive)

Damon, 53, is no first-timer at the Golden Globes. As an actor, he’s been nominated seven times, winning in 2016 for The Martian. As a screenwriter, he took home a Globe alongside Ben Affleck for Good Will Hunting in 1998 — a feat they repeated at the subsequent Oscars.

Air, also Golden Globe-nominated for best comedy or musical movie, featured Damon’s onscreen reunion with Affleck, who helmed the film as director. Written by Alex Convery, it tells the real-life story of Nike, Inc.'s 1984 creation of basketball shoe line Air Jordan with Michael Jordan.

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Phoenix’s name has appeared on the Golden Globes’ nominations lists plenty, for both dramatic and comedic movies. Of his seven nods, the 49-year-old actor won in 2006 for playing Johnny Cash in Walk the Line and in 2020 for playing the titular role in Joker.

Fans may be surprised to see Phoenix recognized for Ari Aster’s A24 horror-esque hit Beau Is Afraid instead of his other major 2023 film, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon. But his surreal performance as Beau Wassermann had audiences on the edge of their seats.

Related: Joaquin Phoenix Admits He 'Was Not Excited' to Accept His Oscar: 'I Was Full of Fear'

It’s been 20 years since Wright last appeared as a Golden Globe nominee — in 2003’s TV adaptation of Angels in America, for which he won.

American Fiction has earned the actor, 58, the best acclaim of his career. In writer-director Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 book Erasure, Wright plays Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a frustrated novelist who pens a stereotypically Black book out of spite, only for it to become a bigger hit than anything written under his own name. It costars Sterling K. Brown, Issa Rae, Erika Alexander, Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Uggams.

See PEOPLE's full coverage of the 81st annual Golden Globes as they're broadcasting live from The Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles on CBS and Paramount+.

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