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Hi, my name is Divine Joy Randolph,
and we are here at the AV Club.

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So the holdovers is about, well,

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it takes place in the winter of
1969 during the Christmas break,

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AKA,

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the holdover and goes into
the new year of 1970 is about

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three people who
unexpectedly are forced to

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stay at a boarding school
because one of the students,

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which is one of the trio parents,
don't pick him up. And so therefore,

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the chef of the school,

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as well as one of the
teachers has to stay.

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I play Mary Lamb,

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the chef Paul Giamatti plays
Paul Hanham and Dominic Sessa

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plays the student. And so
it's a multi-generational,

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multiracial movie in which
three people who both

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have their deal of issues and problems,

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an anger and grief,

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broken people are forced to
come together and it ends up

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turning out to be a beautiful,

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unexpected relationship.
And then unconventional

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family sort of gets formed and
they're able to help each other.

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For sure. Paul, I would say the ease

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and doing the work and then
knowing that you have it and not

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fussing too much over it and letting it
be. And then I would say for Alexander,

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I learned that it does make a difference
when you have a director that's willing

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to create not only an
actor friendly environment,

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but an environment in which it allows
the actors to have all the tools

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necessary to create a solid performance.

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And I think that's something
both that I'm spoiled,

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but that I will try to
instill and ask for in future

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projects. Number one, I had to
learn how to hold the cigarette,

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like someone who's been
smoking it for years.

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And the easiest way I'll
say with that is that

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whether it's in your
mouth or in your hand,

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it's dangling to the point where it
looks like it's about to fall out. It is

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almost like this balance of holding it,

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but it's because it's second nature
at that point to an avid smoker.

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It's like another finger almost.

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So I had to learn how to
hold it without dropping it,

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hold it in my mouth and talk
with having it in my mouth.

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And then for me,

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the other two other
elements is smoke control.

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So for example, something that
people don't normally think about,

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but something you think about when you're
doing a movie is when the smoke or the

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fumes are coming out, you want
to make sure you redirect it.

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You don't want all the smoke covering
up your face while you're acting.

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And then the next is
rhythm. You have to have,

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everyone has a natural rhythm
or cadence when smoking,

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of knowing when to pull, when to hold it.

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When to blow, when to pull again.

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And the rhythm has to be one in which
when you're working on camera that

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it's, do I smoke while the
other person is talking?

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Do I smoke during me talking? But
being that she smokes so much,

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I had to learn how to do it
and smoke while speaking,

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and then kind of in a way it had
to disappear, if that makes sense.

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Meaning the cigarette could not upstage
me or become the thing where people

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are just watching me smoke, smoke, smoke.

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I wanted that to just meld
in with the character.

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And the only way that can
do that is with practice.