Oscars 2024: Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers

Concluding a triumphant sweep of awards season, Da’Vine Joy Randolph has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 2024 Oscars for her role as Mary Lamb in The Holdovers. Alexander Payne’s period piece dramedy about an unlikely trio (Randolph, Paul Giamatti, and Dominic Sessa) trapped at a boarding school over the winter holiday was a critical darling and a sleeper success this awards season; Randolph’s performance in particular was heralded as a standout. This marks her first Oscar nomination and first win, beating out fellow nominees Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer), Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple), America Ferrera (Barbie), and Jodie Foster (Nyad).

Leading up to the Oscars, Randolph took home a trophy from every major ceremony, including the Critics Choice Awards, the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the BAFTAS. Speaking with The New York Times, Randolph admitted that the awards season circuit could be “unnatural.” “In the mass of four weeks, in a very otherworldly way, my entire world has changed,” she said. “You really do earn your stripes going through this award-season thing… It’s overwhelming, if I’m being really honest.” Randolph is only the 10th Black Best Supporting Actress winner in the ceremony’s 96-year history, and the 11th Black female actor to win overall.

Speaking with The A.V. Club last year, Randolph reflected on what she learned from her co-star Giamatti: “I would say the ease, and knowing. Doing the work and knowing that you have it and not fussing too much over it, and letting it be,” she shared. As for writer-director Payne, “I learned that it does make a difference when you have a director that’s willing to create not only an actor-friendly environment, but an environment in which it allows the actors to have all the tools necessary to create a solid performance,” she said. “And I think that’s something that—both that I’m spoiled, but that I will try to instill and ask for in future projects.”