Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins best supporting actress Oscar for The Holdovers
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American actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph at the 96th annual Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood on March 10, 2024.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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LOS ANGELES – American actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the best supporting actress Oscar on March 10 for her role as the grieving mother Mary Lamb in the boarding school drama The Holdovers.
While this is the first Oscar for the Black American actress, Randolph has dominated the awards season with a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award, a BAFTA and a SAG award for her role as the cafeteria manager at the New England school.
The drama, directed by Alexander Payne and distributed by Focus Features, sees three people thrown together at Barton Academy during the Christmas holidays in 1970.
Mary Lamb, who is mourning the death of her son in Vietnam, is joined by a cranky teacher played by Paul Giamatti and a troublemaking student, played by Dominic Sessa.
The 37-year-old Yale School of Drama alumni, who got her start in theater, has said she is grateful to hear from audiences who resonate with Mary’s sense of loss and apathy toward the holidays: “Imagine how hard it is if you’re going through something and all that is on your TV is cheery, cheery, cheery, and you don’t feel like that on the inside.”
The other nominees included Danielle Brooks from musical period drama film The Colour Purple, America Ferrera from Barbie, Jodie Foster from sports biopic Nyad and Emily Blunt from blockbuster period drama Oppenheimer.
Host Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the 96th Academy Awards ceremony offering jokes about the major nominees, as Oppenheimer was poised for big Oscars glory.
“It’s going to be a long night after what was a long year. It was a hard year, but it was also a great year for movies despite the fact that everything stopped,” Kimmel said, referring to the months-long actors’ and writers’ strikes that paralysed Hollywood. REUTERS, AFP
