Da’Vine Joy Randolph was awarded Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2024 Oscars for her performance in The Holdovers.
“I didn’t think I was supposed to be doing this as a career. I started off as a singer and my mother said to me, ‘Go across that street to that theater department, there’s something for you there,” Randolph, 37, said during an emotional acceptance speech on Sunday, March 10. “And I thank my mother for doing that. I thank all the people who have stepped in my path and have been there for me, who have ushered me and guided me.”
She continued, “For so long I’ve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself. And I thank you for seeing me.”
The award was presented by Jamie Lee Curtis, Regina King, Rita Moreno, Mary Steenburgen and Lupita Nyong’o, who presented Randolph with her award.
“Da’Vine, my friend, your performance is tribute to those who have helped others heal in spite of their own pain,” Nyongo, 41, said. “It’s also tribute to your grandmother, who’s glasses you wore in the film. What an honor to see the world through her eyes, and yours.”
Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt, The Color Purple’s Danielle Brooks, Barbie’s America Ferrera and Nyad’s Jodie Foster were also nominated in the category at the awards ceremony, which took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
Heading into the awards show, Blunt, 41, Brooks, 34, Ferrera, 39, and Randolph were all first-time Academy Award nominees. Meanwhile, Foster, 61, is a two-time Oscar winner. She received her first nod for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Taxi Driver in 1977 and went on to earn Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Accused in 1989 and The Silence of the Lambs in 1992. She was also up for Best Actress in a Leading Role for Nell in 1995.
Randolph racked up numerous accolades prior to the Academy Awards for her performance as Mary Lamb, a grieving cafeteria manager at a New England boarding school in The Holdovers. In January, she won Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in Any Motion Picture at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards against Blunt, Brooks, Foster, May December’s Julianne Moore and Saltburn’s Rosamund Pike. The following month, Randolph bested Blunt, Brooks, Foster and Ferrari’s Penélope Cruz to receive Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2024 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Randolph also earned supporting actress trophies at the BAFTAs, the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards.
While accepting her SAG Award in February, Randolph touched on her appreciation for her opportunities as an actress.
“How lucky are we that we get to do what we do? Truly, in what other profession are people able to live so many lives and touch so many hearts of those who they have never gotten to meet?” she asked the audience made up of fellow actors. “I wake up every day overwhelmed [with] gratitude to be a working actor.”
Randolph then encouraged others who are hoping to break into the business to never lose hope. “For every actor out there still waiting in the wings for their chance, let me tell you, your life can change in a day,” she concluded. “It is not a question of if, but when. Keep going.”
