Head of the Class

THE HOLDOVERS STAR, WHO IS GAINING OSCAR STEAM FOR HIS MOST PERSONAL PERFORMANCE YET, SHARES WHAT HE'S LEARNED ON HIS ROAD TO SUCCESS

- JACK SMART

Paul Giamatti is outraged. How can a movie set in 1970, he wants to know, be considered a period piece? “I was alive!” exclaims the 56-year-old actor. “Period is like there’s no cars, there’s no electric light. That’s period!”

Of course, Giamatti is only playing outrage— as convincingly as he’s played joy, shame, awkwardness and grief onscreen for decades now, from his Oscar-nominated turn in Cinderella Man to his Emmy-winning performance in the biographical series John Adams. Nevertheless, he was indeed 3 years old during the events of The Holdovers, which marks director Alexander Payne’s highly anticipated reunion with Giamatti following 2004’s acclaimed Sideways. Their new collaboration is the bittersweet story of a boarding school professor (Giamatti) and two fellow lost souls (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Dominic Sessa) who spend a holiday break on their snowy New England campus. How has the leading man changed in the nearly 20-year interim? “I hope I’m a better actor,” he says with a grin. “I am probably a more mature person, a more secure person. I think I was more professional—maybe.”

Plus, he and Payne reteamed with “a completely crazy shorthand,” Giamatti says. “He will often just go, ‘Let’s just do [that take] again. This is really fun.’ And you don’t hear that a hell of a lot. He gave me a big old gift with this thing.”