Paul Giamatti on The Holdovers

Paul Giamatti won the Golden Globe for his role in The Holdovers. Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a teacher at a boarding school stuck watching the kids who couldn’t go home for Christmas break. Over the holidays, Hunham gets close with Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa).

The Holdovers is Giamatti’s reunion with Sideways writer/director Alexander Payne. In a Zoom with the Critics Choice Association, whose awards are on Saturday, Giamatti discussed his approach to Paul Hunham. The Holdovers is now available on DVD, Blu-ray, VOD and streaming on Peacock.

Q: How did Alexander Payne introduce this role to you?

PG: I’m not sure how long he had it around for. Probably for a while before it ever got to me in any way, shape or form. He basically said to me, “I’ve been working on something I think you’ll find interesting.” It was inspired by a French movie from the 1930s called Merlusse, basically a similar idea of a guy who has to look after a bunch of kids over Christmas break. I thought, “Oh, that sounds kind of interesting.” He said, “He’s got some physical oddities.” That was basically all he told me. I was like, “ Sounds kind of interesting.” 

Then he sent me an early draft of it, fairly early. It didn’t change a huge amount from what he showed me right off the bat. He said, “I really had you in mind for this.” I think for a lot of reasons he did, because I had a background that matched some of what was going on in the movie. That was basically it. We tried to make it a couple of years in a row but scheduling just never worked out. So we could never land on starting at. He would say, “Do you think we could do it this year?” And I’d go no, because of my TV schedule. That happened two or three times and we finally did it. 

Q: How did your upbringing influence the way you approached this character?

PG: I think it influenced it completely and quite a bit, in ways I’m not even aware of. I had a friend I went to high school with who wrote to me and said, “Oh, it was so great. You were clearly completely imitating the head librarian from our school.” I hadn’t thought of that guy for decades and I thought, “Oh my God, I really was.” I didn’t even realize how much I was being the head librarian, exactly, totally unconscious. 

Q: Was it his mannerisms?

PG: Something of the way the character was written already was lending itself towards this guy but there were definitely physical things. I was like oh, I made myself look like that guy and I didn’t even think that I was looking like that guy. He had an eye like that which just is coincidence. There was something about the way I carried myself and some of the way I was dressing. The guy was right. I’d unconsciously been doing this guy. 

Fred Topel: When you think about being stuck over Christmas break with no internet or social media in the 1970s, does that seem like a blessing or a curse?

PG: Blessing to me. It sounds fantastic to me. It sounds like heaven to me. I would love it. I would have no problem with that. I’d love nothing more than to be snowed in. I love nothing more than a blizzard and a snowstorm that shuts everything down. 

Q: What do you think Christmas added to the storyline?

PG: I think it’s a really important part of it personally. I think all the values of Christmas and all the ideals and ideas of Christmas, it’s important that it’s happening then. The Scrooge story part of it it’s a little bit of Scrooge. All of them are a little bit of Scrooge but the idea of selflessness and redemption, rebirth and things like that are important to the story I think. 

Q: Did you ever revert back to your days at Yale?

PG: Again, probably unconsciously I did a lot, or days when I went to a prep school like that. I enjoyed shooting everything. I think the thing I enjoyed the most was the whole day we shot around the skating rink and stuff like that. It was all a day at that place doing stuff. I think it was the same day we shot the liquor store stuff but I really enjoyed shooting the ice skating stuff, just watching him ice skate was a thing in the script that I really liked and was a thing that I really loved shooting. No words or anything like that. It was just him beginning to see the kid in a different way and the kid beginning to see him in a different way was something lovely about that scene.

Q: What kind of student were you? Did you have a mentor?

PG: There was a teacher at that school. I wouldn’t call him a mentor but those schools are rough and the teachers are rough. So he was one of the only teachers that wasn’t like that. I don’t think I’d call him a mentor but he was a nice guy. If i was interested in the subject I was good. If I wasn’t interested, I didn’t work very hard. If I was interested, I was good. I was hopeless in math and I still am. I still have nightmares about math class because I can’t add, I can’t do anything. I have to count on my fingers and even that’s difficult for me. 

Q: Was there a teacher who changed your life?

PG: There’s people who inspired the role. I don’t know if they changed my life. As much as that librarian was in the thing unconsciously, I was consciously thinking of a teacher who I wouldn’t say he changed my life but he seemed very similar. The first time I read the script I thought of this biology teacher of mine in 10th grade who’s a very similar kind of guy. I do think what was important in that was he was a difficult, sarcastic, not very nice guy. He was a good teacher and I had flashes even as a kid of realizing he was actually a good guy. Alexander makes an interesting distinction between nice and kind. This guy wasn’t nice but he was kind and that felt like the character. 

Q: Did you ever want your character to go off and lose his composure at the way he’s being treated?

PG: He does eventually. He loses it when he runs into that guy and arguably he’s in a bit of a state all the time. I tell that kid off at dinner too. I tell that horrible elitist racist kid off too. He loses his cool but he gets it back fast. There is a definite sense of he’s a Roman historian so stoicism is a big thing. Maintaining your cool or at least appearing to maintain your cool is very important for him all the time. I think he loses it several times but gets it back very fast. That’s the thing. You have to maintain all the time. 

Q: Do you see The Holdovers in conversation with Sideways as they reflect two decades of changed outlook?

PG: It’s interesting the whole relationship between the two movies. It’s a funny subject that Alexander and I tiptoed around without ever really directly addressing it. It’s a similar guy 20 years on who has changed in certain ways. There’s a lot of similarities. There’s a lot of dialogue between the two of them. It’s very interesting. I can only say that I found this character different. He’s a similar guy. I liked this character more. I think this guy’s got more backbone and he’s got more going on. He’s tougher than the other guy. He’s not self pitying the way the other guy is. There’s something I like about him more. Could the other guy have ended up this way? I don’t know. It’s different times. I think the other guy, a 20 year change could be different because there’s psychotherapy and things like that and there’s antidepressants. Although my guy in The Holdovers is on antidepressants back then which is unusual. 

Q: You play glorious drunks. Where does that come form?

PG: I don’t know. It’s a fun thing to do. It’s an interesting thing to play physically and emotionally. Everything about it is interesting. You’re changed and things change. The physical aspect of it is fun. I don’t know why I’ve done it so much. I did it on stage a lot. When I did plays, I would frequently play the guy who drinks too much on stage. I’ve done it in other movies too. It’s not just in Alexander’s. I did a movie called Barney’s Version where I play really worse than these two guys, a guy who really blows his life apart by drinking too much. I don’t know why it comes to me but I definitely find it an interesting thing to play. It’s fun in its perverse way to play it. I can only say that I’m not a big drinker off screen. I’m not a huge drinker off screen. Not that I haven’t been inebriated in my life so I have experience to draw on, but I’m not a big drinker.

Q: You still made Paul likable. Is that all in the script or what’s your approach?

PG: A lot of it does. A lot of it comes from though my experience with people like this. There is a lot of charisma to these guys if they’re good at what they do and I think he is in some ways. I think in a lot of ways, two things. I actually think he’s right a lot of times in what he’s saying. He’s just going about it the wrong way. So from a staring point I was saying to myself I like this guy. He’s not wrong. He’s not wrong to want to take these elitist little jerks to task, racist too a lot of them. I feel sympathy for him. He’s not of the same socioeconomic class either. He comes from what’s probably a working class blue collar background. It’s only very briefly alluded to but he’s not from that world. 

Also I think he’s funny and I think he knows he’s funny and he likes being funny. It’s brutal the way he’s being funny but he’s taking pleasure in it. I remember saying to Alexander early on, this guy’s a prick but he enjoys being a prick. I think some of his hitting back at some of the stuff that’s annoying maybe is relatable. A lot of people would like to tell these people to go F themselves, these kids. So I think there’s a certain pleasure taken in this guy not really caring. He doesn’t care about being liked either. He’s okay with not being liked and there’s something great about a person like that. I have a weird affection for somebody. And again, he’s kind. Underneath it all he’s a good person who does care. He cares about the kid and he cares about teaching. I think it breaks his heart in the end to say goodbye to this kid he’s never going to see again. I think he’s a good person underneath it. 

Q: Why do you think filmmakers like to cast you as curmudgeons?

PG: They’re great characters to play. They’re complicated, interesting characters. They’re wonderful to play and they’re often funny which is good too. They sort of say and do the things – I suppose in a lot of ways they say and do the things I would never do. I’m not like this, thank God. I don’t think I’d ever work if I were like this. Nobody would want to employ me. It’s always a question to me of do I seek these things out unconsciously? Do I attract them? Do I just bring something to these parts that’s always the same? I don’t know. I do think that there’s a certain, especially with lead roles, somebody sees you do something and they want to see you do it again. And that’s fine. They’re great parts so I’ve got no complaints about that.