In case you were wondering, there was no beef between Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne. The actor and filmmaker collaborated on 2004’s “Sideways,” an art-house breakout that earned over $100 million worldwide and five Oscar nominations including Best Picture (Payne and Jim Taylor won for Adapted Screenplay). But it’s almost been 20 years since that first collaboration. Now, finally, the pair are back together with the word-of-mouth wonder, “The Holdovers.”
READ MORE: “The Holdovers”: David Hemingson on writing for Paul Giamatti, channeling his boarding school experiences and more [Interview]
Set mostly at a prestigious New England boarding school in 1970, the film centers on the unlikely friendship between a student abandoned by his parents over the Christmas break (newcomer Dominic Sessa), a grumpy teacher with a scandalous past (Giamatti), and the kitchen head who is still mourning the death of her son in Vietnam (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). While the movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival, it wasn’t until the end of the SAG strike that its stars could finally support the Focus Features release publicly. Catching up with Giamatti last week, he made it clear both he and Payne endeavored to work together again.
“We talked a long time ago, after ‘Sideways,’ about doing a private detective thing, which I really want to do with him because I think we could make a really good [one],” Giamatti says. “I don’t know what it would be, but it would be something about a private detective and he says he just wants to do a movie where I get shot at constantly and people are constantly beating and punching me, like ‘Chinatown.‘ Not a period thing, I don’t think, but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. I’d love to do something like that. He’s always talked about making a Western, which I was always like, ‘If you make a Western, I want to be in it. I don’t care what I play.’ We’ll see, but none of those ever happened. This almost didn’t happen, and then eventually the schedule worked out.”
Over the course of our conversation, a gregarious Giamatti reflects on the real-life private school teacher who inspired his performance, Payne’s old school shooting style, why his character ended up back at his alma mater, and much more.
This interview contains spoilers from “The Holdovers” and has been edited for clarity.
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The Playlist: Congratulations on the movie.
Paul Giamatti: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
I know this is the first time you’ve gotten a chance to talk about it, but while the strike was going on, you got to see the reviews, you got to see the reaction, and you got to see that people love it in theaters. What has that bird’s eye view perspective been like for you?
I’m very excited that people are going to the theater to see it and seeming to really go a lot. That was great because just going to theaters to see anything is great, but to see something like this is really great. It was cool to be able to watch it from the outside in a funny way. There was something like, “Ah, just watching my boy go off to school and make his way in the world,” kind of thing. You know what I mean? There was a little bit of that, but it was also frustrating because actually, I wanted to talk about this movie. Great to be on strike and have all that happening. This was like, “Oh God, I actually want to talk about this movie.” I’m really eager to talk about this movie because I like it so much. I did feel a little bit frustrated not to be there with Alexander and Da’Vine and Dom and actually enjoy talking about it.
Speaking of Alexander, and I know this is a question every single journalist has asked you, but since “Sideways,” everyone assumed that you guys would eventually try to find another project to work on together, and it took a really long time. Were there other reunion projects that fell through the cracks that you thought might happen?
This didn’t work schedule-wise for a long time. We tried to do this for a while, maybe five years or something, on and off. We kept trying to do it and it just never worked out. We talked a long time ago, after “Sideways,” about doing a private detective thing, which I really want to do with him because I think we could make a really good [one]. I don’t know what it would be, but it would be something about a private detective and he says he just wants to do a movie where I get shot at constantly and people are constantly beating, and punching me, like “Chinatown.” Not a period thing, I don’t think, but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen. I’d love to do something like that. He’s always talked about making a Western, which I was always like, “If you make a Western, I want to be in it. I don’t care what I play.” We’ll see, but none of those ever happened. This almost didn’t happen, and then eventually the schedule worked out.
I’m so glad it did. I think you were born and raised in Connecticut for most of your life.
New Haven, Connecticut.
Did you go to private or public school?
I went to one of these schools. I went to a boarding school. I didn’t board there though. It was about 15 minutes away from New Haven. It’s called Choate Rosemary Hall. It’s a classic New England boarding school, but it was a different experience not living there. I think it’d be a whole other thing to actually live there, because the day student existence is very different, and the day students are local kids, a lot of them were scholarship kids. But, yes, I get it because I went to one of those places.
Well, that was my question. When you got the script, did you feel like you were reading things that you were like, “Oh, I know these kids. I’ve seen them.”
Sure. Even more so I knew the teachers and I was like, “I know these teachers really well,” and I mean, I grew up in a university. My dad was a professor and then president of Yale University, and so I was around that world all the time, so yeah.
Your character was Professor Hunham, Dr. Hunham?
Just Mr. Just Mr.
Right. Mr. Hunham.
Yeah, he doesn’t have a PhD. He doesn’t even have an undergraduate degree. He’s got no degree. He’s got nothing.
Was there anyone that you remember from going to school that you inspired him by or was it just on the page?
There was a lot on the page and there was a ton on the page, but when I first got the thing, I was surprised to be reminded of a guy who was my 10th grade biology teacher who I hadn’t thought about many years. When I even asked other kids – I don’t talk to many kids from high school – but I asked them if they remembered this guy. Nobody remembered him, and that’s how indifferent everybody was to him. He was a huge influence on the part for me, to the extent that I had to stop thinking about him because he had very particular things about who he was. He was a big influence on it.
Was the influence in his demeanor? Was it in his personality?
Yeah, it was his demeanor, somewhat his appearance. There were things about him that were very similar to this character. The sarcasm and all that stuff. But the thing I remember about this guy was having a moment with this guy of realizing that he, underneath all of this somewhat alcoholic bravado and thing that he had going on, a shtick that he had going on, he actually really cared about teaching, that he was actually not a bad guy, I didn’t think, underneath it all. Teaching meant something to him. Underneath all of this stuff, there was actually a guy who cared about what he was doing.
Was that a core thing that you had to keep reminding yourself about playing this role?
That he actually did care?
Yeah.
He does. I think he actually does. I mean, I like this character. I mean, he’s a pain, he goes too far and he’s difficult, but I think he’s right about some things and he goes too far and he’s not living in the real world anymore, and he’s lost in his own shtick, but he’s not wrong, and I think he’s a good person underneath it, and he’s a real teacher. He wants to really teach these kids something.
At the end of the film, we find out that Hunham had a horrible thing happen to him when he was a college student, a plagiarism accusation while he was studying at Harvard. After he dropped out, why do you think he still stayed in the Northeast to teach? He could have gone West, south anywhere. Did you ever wonder why he stayed?
Because I think those schools are really attempting to recreate some totally archaic institutions and values that are very, very comforting to a lot of people. They’re drawing on those English schools that everybody loves that thing, and it’s like it felt comfortable to him. It’s this world of the mind and morality and all these things felt right to him, and that the guy he keeps talking about, the headmaster, who gives him the job is this father figure to him, and he’s at this place that feels comfortable. He feels safe. He went to that school and he felt safe there because it’s got all these ridiculous values that it’s apparently, supposedly espousing and they feel right to him.
I know it’s obviously been over 20 years since you worked with Alexander, but I was talking to Da’Vine earlier today and she was reminding me that he works much differently than many other filmmakers today. There’s no video village. No playback. It’s just him next to the camera. Is that a process you enjoy or are you someone who’s like, “Hey, I’d like to go and look and check the scene?”
No, and on “Sideways,” the first day I walked on the set, I didn’t know there was not a video village, and I was like, “Oh.” I said, “What? There’s no video village.” Not that I was like, I don’t like going over and looking at myself. And I was like, “This is amazing.” I say this about him all the time. Because of that, it’s a completely different environment on set because it creates a hierarchy. You have this video village and you have where everybody else is working. The video village where all the important people are sitting and they’re getting coffee and they’re hanging out there and they’re all on their phone and everybody else is doing the grunt work over there. And it’s like now there’s one workspace and everybody’s working in the same place and everybody’s on the same level. It’s a level playing field, and then he’s right next to the camera so that you feel like there’s this personal connection and it will talk to you sometimes and nothing else is like it, and I’ve never worked with anybody else who does this the way he does it, and it’s fantastic.
When dailies come back does he show scenes to the actors?
Doesn’t show you anything, no. And I don’t care, great. I trust him that it’s all working. And it’s like, but Da’Vine, she has a sister in the movie, and he showed her all the people he was thinking of because he wanted her input. That doesn’t happen very often that somebody actually comes to you and says, “Who do you think should play your sister in this stuff? Who do you respond to?” I mean, that’s amazing, that kind of thing. It all sounds really simple, but you’d be amazed at how rare it is.
When you did see the final movie, what did you think?
I have still not seen it finished. I saw a final rough cut, so it didn’t have a lot of the music and stuff in it. I was really struck by how beautiful the cinematography was, and I was so struck by how much the weather really was so meaningful. Every time you see it snowing in that movie, it’s actually snowing, and it’s like that never happens in a movie. And that feeling was really amazing. I remembered looking at myself and going, “That’s what I did? I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. That was interesting.” I was like, “Wow, what a weird performance. I didn’t realize I was… Wow.” I was very unconscious of a lot of it because I think I was drawing [from a] well of stuff just from my past. I wasn’t even thinking about a lot of stuff, and I was like, “Wow, what a weird performance.” But I thought it was great. I loved it.
“The Holdovers” is now playing nationwide.