Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been the star of the 2024 awards season, but her career was already buzzy before she became an Oscar contender.
Randolph attended both the Yale School of Drama and the British American Drama Academy, gaining recognition in 2012 for her work in Broadway’s Ghost: The Musical. She earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Oda Mae Brown.
Following her Broadway success, Randolph turned to the big screen. She made a splash with roles in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (2014) and Office Christmas Party (2016) before joining Eddie Murphy in the 2019 biopic Dolemite Is My Name. She also began racking up credits on hit TV shows, appearing on This Is Us, Empire and On Becoming a God in Central Florida.
Her star continued to rise with roles on the one-season wonder High Fidelity and on Only Murders in the Building, but it was her nuanced portrayal of grieving mother Mary in 2023’s The Holdovers that caught Hollywood’s attention.
The Holdovers stars Paul Giamatti as Paul Hunham, a strict professor at an all-boys private school tasked with watching students — including Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) — who stay for the holiday break. Mary, the school’s head cook whose son died in the Vietnam War, also remains on campus.
Randolph won a Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Awards, BAFTA and SAG Award for her performance. She’s up for Best Supporting Actress at this year’s Academy Awards.
“Mary, you have changed my life. You have made me feel seen in so many ways that I have never imagined,” she said while accepting her Golden Globe in January. “I hope I helped you all find your inner Mary, because there is a little bit of her in all of us.”
Scroll down for a look back at Randolph’s most memorable roles before The Holdovers: