Paul Giamatti (‘The Holdovers’) on finally reuniting with Alexander Payne: ‘It wasn’t for lack of trying’

Ray Richmond
·5 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

When Paul Giamatti read an early draft of “The Holdovers” from screenwriter David Hemingson, it took him about five seconds before he knew he wanted to star in it. “I thought it was terrific,” he says. “I love this kind of setting of things. And I’m a sucker for a Christmas thing. I thought it was very funny. I just thought it was lovely, and I loved the period thing.”

The film centers on three damaged people who are stuck inside a fictitious elite New England boarding school over the holidays in 1970 and trickling into ’71:  cantankerous history professor Paul Hunham (Giamatti), a cafeteria director named Mary Lamb who’s grieving her son’s death in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) and a brilliant but brooding and troubled student, Angus Tully (newcomer Dominic Sessa). “I loved all three of those characters,” he emphasizes. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

More from GoldDerby

It isn’t like Giamatti needed a whole lot of convincing anyway, given that it’s directed by two-time Academy Award winner Alexander Payne. The two had been searching for another project to do together since Giamatti starred in Payne’s acclaimed wine-drenched feature “Sideways” in 2004, which earned Payne an adapted screenplay Oscar. “It wasn’t for lack of trying,” he says. “We talked about doing a private eye thing (together), which I would still love to do. He wanted me to do ‘Downsizing,’ but it didn’t work out. But then this popped up, and we tried to make it several years running, and it just never worked out schedule-wise. I was on this TV show (‘Billions’) for a long time.” But then it finally happened.

SEEPaul Giamatti (‘The Holdovers’) will finally get an Oscar nomination for an Alexander Payne film

For Professor Hunham, Giamatti channeled his 10th grade biology teacher at the East Coast prep school he attended. “That really fired off a lot of things for me,” he stresses. “The guy really came back to me in a way that I almost had to keep putting him out of my mind because I didn’t want some impersonation of (him). But that was a big influence.” What’s interesting is that Giamatti describes his real-life biology teacher as a “chain-smoking, hard-living guy,” which his “Holdovers” character certainly is not. “Alexander yesterday made an interesting distinction (about Professor Hunham),” he says. “He said, ‘This man is not nice, but he’s kind.’ He doesn’t care about being liked, because he believes (he does things) the best way to convey these important values. He goes too far, and he does it the wrong way, but I think he’s a kind man.”

Giamatti professes that he loved being part of a film that so effectively embodied an early 1970s look and dynamic, noting that, “It’s a real trick to be able to pull that stuff off, not to overdo it or underdo it but hit he right tone of it….Everything looked actually lived in, and people looked a little crappy. Everyone was kind of greasy and kind of not looking great. You go see those movies now and you’re amazed. Cliff Robertson‘s hair is blowing all over the place, and you’re like, ‘Wow, there wasn’t a guy running in every two seconds to comb his hair down.’ For some reason, they wanted it to look like that.”

SEEDominic Sessa (‘The Holdovers’) on his film debut: ‘I was so hyper-focused, and so in the moment every day’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

“The Holdovers” from Focus Features is so evocative of the period it’s set in that Giamatti believes even the face of his co-star Sessa “feels very period. He looks like he’s from a ’70s movie. It also felt like a very ’70s thing to put the kid who’s never done anything in the movie.” Indeed, that kid was a junior at the Deerfield Academy boarding school when he went through a massive audition process to get hired for a co-starring role in the film despite literally never having been on camera before. It was a lot to put on the shoulders of  young man with no movie experience, but Giamatti asserts, “I never had any moment of feeling like I wasn’t working with somebody who was going to be right there and capable.”

It was nonetheless a huge risk for Payne to have taken, Giamatti acknowledges.

“If the kid doesn’t work, I really don’t think the movie would have,” he believes. “No matter how good me and Da’Vine were, it wouldn’t be the same if the kid wasn’t really on point. He was remarkably comfortable. He conveys intelligence without having to do a whole lot…He was just so charismatic and poised.”

“The Holdovers” is playing in theaters everywhere this holiday season.

PREDICT the 2024 Oscar nominees by Jan. 23

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

Best of GoldDerby

Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Click here to read the full article.