Correspondent Lesley Stahl catches up with Paul Giamatti, the veteran actor whose performance in last year’s crucially-acclaimed film “The Holdovers” has earned him a top nomination at the 2024 Academy Awards.
Difficult characters are a Paul Giamatti specialty. He’s portrayed a cantankerous John Adams and a brutal U.S. Attorney in “Billions,” and, in his latest movie, “The Holdovers,” Giamatti plays Paul Hunham, a bitter teacher at a New England boarding school.
Hunham is in charge of the students with nowhere to go at Christmas, and he forms a bond with a rebellious kid and the school’s grieving cook, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, whose deceased son attended the school.
People have described the movie as a “Scrooge-like Christmas story,” with Giamatti being Scrooge. He thinks that’s apt.
“It has a ‘Christmas Carol’ thing,” Giamatti says. “I think all three of the characters are Scrooge a little bit. They all need to kind of move out of a place that they’re stuck in.”
The 56-year-old’s performance has earned him a nomination for best actor at the Oscars, and Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards. After his win at the Golden Globes, Giamatti says he took his award to a burger place before going out to parties and “fancy things.”
Giamatti’s role in “The Holdovers” was written for him.
“There’s times when I think, ‘Why was this written specifically for me, a man who smells like fish that nobody likes?'” he says. “Then I look at it and go, ‘I think I know.'”
One reason: Giamatti, raised in Connecticut, attended a prep school himself.
