Da’Vine Joy Randolph Was ‘Overjoyed’ About ‘Holdovers’ Role After a Career of Having to ‘Fight for Fully Realized Characters’

variety.com:

Stuart Miller Da’Vine Joy Randolph had grown weary of scripts that offered her shallow or one-dimensional characters. “I’ve felt like I had to fight for fully realized characters with complexities or even start writing or producing myself,” she says.

Then she was sent David Hemingson’s script for “The Holdovers,” for the role of Mary Lamb, who works in the cafeteria of a prep school for the wealthy, soldiering on even as she mourns the death of her sonin Vietnam. “I was so overjoyed to read this character, someone who was really struggling, but also trying to persevere in spite of her situation,” says Randolph, who was nominated for a Tony Award in 2012 for her performance in “Ghost: The Musical.” She has since appeared in everything from “Dolemite Is My Name,” “High Fidelity” and “Only Murders in the Building” to “The United States vs.

Billie Holiday” and this year’s “Rustin,” where she sings as Mahalia Jackson at the March on Washington. Randolph was so moved that when she first talked about the part with director Alexander Payne, she compared the script to Chekov. “He took misery, boredom, silence and normal behavior and made them real but in an interesting way,” Randolph says.

Payne, who had admired Randolph’s comedic performance in “Dolemite,” was struck in their initial conversation by her understanding of the film, but once they started filming what impressed him most was how Randolph played those silences, especially in the dramatic moments. “There’s a moment where she’s unpacking her son’s baby stuff at her sister’s house and she brought a subtlety and profundity to it,” Payne says. “And when she’s in a drunk reverie at a party, the camera dollies in and she expresses a myriad of emotions I can’t fully name but.