The Holdovers reunites Sideways’ director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti in a holiday story of three lonely, shipwrecked people at a New England boarding school over winter break in 1970. Giamatti, in his Golden Globe Award-winning role, stars as Paul Hunham, a curmudgeonly instructor who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them – a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) – as well as the school’s head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), whose only child, a recent graduate, has been killed in Vietnam. Left to their own devices in the empty school, the three of them find adventure, calamity, and some semblance of family.
Speaking with Peter Gray ahead of the film’s local release, Giamatti touched on the bond he formed with his co-stars, his own figure of influence as he navigated high school, and if there was a different approach from both himself and director Payne to their craft in the two decades since they last collaborated.
There’s a line in the film that your character notes, and I’m paraphrasing here, about being in the present and looking at your future, you have to look at your past to do so. I wanted to branch from that and ask about reuniting with Alexander Payne and if your individual approaches to acting and directing, respectively, have changed since last collaborating?
It was interesting. He directed this movie differently, but I don’t know if that’s because he necessarily changed, but because it was a different movie. This kind of 70s thing. When we made Sideways, it was much looser. There were multiple cameras and everyone was mic’d. (The Holdovers) was the opposite. This felt more formal, because he was doing this 70s movie. He had a real focus on the pace of it, this thing. He kept it moving in a different way. So, he directed it in a different way. He’s still the same guy, and his approach was still very relaxed and very fun.
I don’t know about myself. You’d have to ask him whether he thought I was any different at all. I suppose I feel more in command of stuff, I guess? I guess I’m a better actor? I don’t know. In some ways I think I was better then than I am now (laughs). I’ve definitely got more relaxed about it, but I’d be curious to know what he says.
Your character in the film, one of his defining features is that of his lazy eye. Do you think that particular trait represents anything deeper?
Part of it is I think (Alexander Payne) took it from the movie that inspired him. It’s this French movie from the 30s called Merlusse, which I think means “Codfish”, or something like that, and the character in that smells like fish (like my character here). And he has a condition with his eye. So part of it is that.
The reason, though, is that it makes him an object of ridicule. An object of scorn by the kids. It’s another thing to place him on the outside of the zone of acceptance. Everything just keeps removing him further and further from that zone of comfort in the world. I think in some ways it’s that.
It does almost feel like a permanent eye roll.
(Laughs) Oh, that’s interesting. I never thought of it like that.
And with (your character) Paul being a literary teacher, was that a profession of interest for you?
You know, everyone in my family were all teachers. My parents, my grandparents…so, yeah, it seemed like growing up that’s what you did. There was a part of me that assumed I would do it. I thought about it. I thought about going back and getting a degree, but I don’t know what I would have done. Acting was really what I wanted to do, but I didn’t decide that until after I got out of college. I suppose I had moments of thinking it’s what I was going to do, but I don’t think I would have been very good at it (laughs). I don’t think I could dedicate my life to one subject. None of it made sense to me.
On the subject of literature, there’s a saying “If it bothers you, it fits you”, and that seems to resonate with the film’s lead characters. How do you personally resonate with that idea that the person we are supposed to hate, or are our contrary, turns out to be a confidant?
(Laughs) That’s interesting. It’s kind of an opposites attract thing, but it’s not really the opposite, because it’s more the thing that drives you crazy is actually the thing you need to connect with and learn from. It makes a lot of sense. In the movie (these characters) rub each other the wrong way and that sets them off, but it allows them to open up to each other in a funny way to realise they’re not so different from each other in some ways.
And the film looks at hardships and finding that one person that pulls you through. With your own experience in high school, was there a hardship you personally faced and, if so, did you have that one person that guided you through?
That’s a really interesting question. I don’t know if I had any specific hardship, but there was a teacher who was unlike (my character), who was this good guy, and I went to a rough school, and he definitely helped me. I still speak to him, and he’s an old man now, but I don’t think there was any one thing I had a problem with. I was generally angry and depressed, like any teenager. He was just a beacon of kindness in a place that didn’t have a whole lot. It helped for him to be a kind influence. I started acting in my senior year, and he encouraged me. He identified it as something I was very good at. His affirmation of that helped me a lot.
With your character taking Angus very much under his wing throughout, did that mirror your relationship with Dominic Sessa at all, given he was making his film debut here?
I suppose in some ways. I felt a lot of affection for him, and I felt protective of him, but I don’t know if he needed a whole lot of it. I quickly realised he was going to be fine. All I needed to do was keep pointing out how good he was. That’s about all I did. I didn’t need to teach him much. If he gained anything from it, it was nothing I was aware of. He was probably picking up on a lot of stuff. He’s a very smart guy. I liked being around him a lot. He’s a lovely guy.
I guess it only mimics it in that I became more affectionate towards him more and more. I liked him more and more, and that’s what happens to (the characters) too. I suppose it did in that way, yeah.
The Holdovers is screening in Australian theatres from January 11th, 2024.
