THE HOLDOVERS Stars Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Sessa Talk Alexander Payne's Holiday Dramedy

By Sean Boelman

(l-r.) Director Alexander Payne and actors Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph on the set of their film THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Photo Credit: Seacia Pavao.

The Holdovers is the latest film from filmmaker Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants), and stars Paul Giamatti as a boarding school teacher who gets stuck over the winter holidays with one of his dejected students (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph)

One of the biggest highlights of the film was the chemistry between the three leads. In a press conference with the trio and director Alexander Payne, they were asked how they worked to build this chemistry on set. This is what Giamatti had to say: “We had time. You always make time. I mean, when I’ve worked with [Payne] before, [he] make[s] time. So, we had a couple weeks to sorta get to know each other. I remember that specifically on Sideways, we had more time probably. But any time is more than you usually get.”

Randolph adds, “For this project, let’s say we had three weeks in which we were doing table reads and text analysis and working stuff out. Because people have been asking this question about what was improvised and what wasn’t. I think that was very unique, to me at least, that Alexander did, was that there was room for that, but we did it at the early phase of the table read session. So then it was kinda like this is our collective, agreed upon script, and that we stuck to.  But the fact that we had that time to do that, I haven’t had that in a very, very long time.”

“It was this little group of the three of us. It felt like a little chamber play thing sometimes,” Giamatti concludes.

(l-r.) Dominic Sessa stars as Angus Tully, Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Mary Lamb and Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham in director Alexander Payne’s THE HOLDOVERS, a Focus Features release. Photo Credit: Seacia Pavao.

However, even more impressive is that Sessa, who has never had a screen credit prior to The Holdovers — even in short films — is able to hold his own against the two more experienced performers. 

This is what he had to say about the prospect of working on Payne’s latest film with his acclaimed co-stars: “I mean, yeah. I just didn’t know what these people were gonna be like to me beforehand. These are celebrities to me, you know? So, I don’t know if they go back to their trailers and plug themselves back in or whatever.”

He adds, “I genuinely could not have asked for better people to do this with for the first time around. Everyone was so down to earth, grounded, and confident in what they were bringing, but also confident in what I was able to bring, too.  Like, you guys really, genuinely trusted me in my creative process, my artistry, and that’s all I really could’ve asked for the first time.”

If his performance in The Holdovers is any indication, we can look forward to seeing even more great things in the future from Sessa.

The Holdovers hits VOD on November 28.