Voluptuously curvy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph has made no secret of the fact that her big Hollywood break has taken years because she doesn’t fit the mould of how a leading lady should look.
She has said: ‘People on screen don’t traditionally look like me. I’ve had to fight to play fully-realised characters with complexities.’
When applying for drama school, she was asked which actors she admired. After she mentioned Meryl Streep, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, the interviewer told her: ‘I need to make you aware that the people you gave are 60-plus-year-old white women, one from the UK.’
But when this year’s Oscars nominations are announced on Tuesday, she is likely to prove the naysayers wrong, as the 37-year-old is a shoo-in for the Best Supporting Actress category. She already has a Golden Globe and is favourite for a Bafta and an Oscar for her performance as a bereaved cook in The Holdovers.
The film also stars Paul Giamatti as a cantankerous teacher at a private boys’ school who is left to supervise Christmas in 1970 with a troubled student and Da’Vine’s character, who is grieving the loss of her son in the Vietnam War.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph poses in the press room with the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role in any motion picture for ‘The Holdovers’ at the 81st Golden Globe Awards on January 7, 2024
Her performance was lauded by CNN as ‘the best by any actor this year’, while the Mail’s film critic Brian Viner says ‘her humanity shines through her sadness’.
One person who is not surprised by her apparent overnight success is her former teacher and mentor Gwendolyn Bowers, one of the first black opera singers in the US.
Last night, Ms Bowers, a mezzo-soprano who performed around the world, told The Mail on Sunday movingly about meeting a 12-year-old Da’Vine at a local church performance of Handel’s Messiah.
She said: ‘I recall this little girl walking over, saying, ‘I want to be like you, can you teach me?’ She’d never heard opera, let alone seen a black opera singer. She had the face of a child, but there was a steeliness. I told her Yes on the spot.’
Da’Vine is from racially diverse Philadelphia, but went to a mostly white school. Ms Bowers said she took weekly lessons at the singer’s home. Referring to her students, she said: ‘I am Mama Bird and they are my Birdlings. With Da’Vine, we started with Italian opera. I remember that shine in her eyes when she completed her first aria.
‘There was a determination about Da’Vine from the start. She turned up to every lesson fully prepared. She was always asking, ‘What else can you teach me?’ It sounds crazy, but I believe some people are pre-destined for greatness.
‘She had a God-given talent with a determination to succeed from a very young age. There was never any doubt she would make it.’
Da’Vine Joy and Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers
Da’Vine Joy and Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers
But her looks saw her passed over for plum roles at school. Her tutor said: ‘She wanted the lead in musicals, but would end up getting a chorus part. She wasn’t a ‘conventional’ leading lady. I’d explain that life isn’t easy, and as a black woman she would have to keep pushing, to be better, stronger, never give up.’
After a spell at the prestigious Interlochen summer music school in Michigan, Da’Vine went to Temple University, where she switched from opera to drama, and was then accepted at Yale School of Drama. Ms Bowers said: ‘She would phone for little pep talks – she still does. When she said she wanted to pursue acting, I told her to go for it.
‘Singing is her great love and…with all this attention I hope this opens doors and brings opportunities for the world to see what a talented musical artist she is.’
Da’Vine moved to New York and was working as a nanny when she got her first break. She auditioned as an understudy in the Broadway musical adaptation of Ghost, the Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore love story, and, in a moment of what she calls ‘pure destiny’, the lead in the London version fell ill – and Da’Vine dashed over the Atlantic to stand in.
‘My first performance was in London’s West End. How crazy is that?’ she has said. Her performance brought the house down and led to a Tony award nomination. But for years she was overlooked for film roles in an industry where male executives still insist women ‘conform’. ‘That made me even more determined that I would choose quality parts – parts that mattered,’ Da’Vine has said.
It took the movie director Alexander Payne (who won Oscars for Sideways and The Descendants) to catapult her to success in The Holdovers. Payne knew Da’Vine was ‘the one’ within minutes of her walking into the audition room (File Photo)
She skipped family weddings and birthdays to work. Ms Bowers said: ‘Da’Vine is someone who has been chasing her destiny for years.
‘She would ring me and say ‘Mama Bird, I’m tired’ and I would tell her to rest, to wait, that everything would come to pass.’ Da’Vine was duly chosen by Eddie Murphy to star as a rapper in his 2019 comeback movie Dolemite Is My Name.
That led to comic Steve Martin putting her in the hit series Only Murders In The Building, about killings in a New York apartment block, in which she is a detective.
But it took the movie director Alexander Payne (who won Oscars for Sideways and The Descendants) to catapult her to success in The Holdovers. Payne knew Da’Vine was ‘the one’ within minutes of her walking into the audition room: ‘She had a depth of character, an authenticity.’
Ms Bowers said: ‘Da’Vine was always going to be a star. It took years, but in my mind there was never any doubt.
‘I believe she will win the Oscar, and that is a rich reward. But the greatest reward is that this would let the world see my Birdling fly.’
