The fascinating life of Paul Giamatti

Giamatti has always been on the screen, but in 2024, his role in 'The Holdovers' is putting the actor once again in the spotlights. Awards and nominations are accumulating.

Giamatti has played great sidekicks - those characters which really stay with you after watching his films - especially in the 90s. We have also seen him in leading roles, though. And that's where he outshone many others in 2023...

Giamatti has clearly not disappeared from the Hollywood scene at all, as some might think, but is more alive than ever. In the film 'The Holdovers' (2023), he is teaming up again with director Alexander Payne.

Image: Focus Features

In this film, the American actor plays Paul Hunham, an exasperatingly pompous and rigid New England high school teacher who no one can stand. In Christmas, 1970, he will have to spend the holidays at his school with a troubled student and an African-American cook.

This new film takes us back to 2004, when Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti joined forces to shape 'Sideways', a magnificent dramatic comedy starring Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh. It won an Oscar, the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Adapted Screenplay.

On television, Giamatti has had a greater presence in recent years, with his work in series such as 'Lodge 49' (2019) - in the image - and, 'Billions' (2016-2022) where he played the role of Chuck Rhoades, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In the latter, he shared the lead role with Damian Lewis.

Not only have we been able to see him in person on television, but we have also been able to hear his voice, which he has given to well-known and successful animated series such as 'BoJack Horseman'; 'Big Mouth', as Andrew Glouberman and in 'Rick and Morty', as Story Lord.

As for the big screen, in recent years, Giamatti has appeared in a few titles that did not get as much appraisal as his hits of yesteryear. Examples are 'Morgan' (2016), 'Private Life' (2018), 'The Catcher Was a Spy' (2018), 'I Think We're Alone Now', (2018), 'Jungle Cruise' (2021) and 'Gunpowder Milkshake' (2021).

Soon, he can be seen in 'San Andreas 2', alongside Dwayne Johnson, and even the Spanish series '30 Monedas' which signed him for its second season. He plays Christian Barbrow, a multimillionaire science and technology guru, writer of science fiction novels and leader of the 'Brotherhood', a mysterious organization formed by members of the world's elite.

Giamatti has a career that continues to advance steadily since he started in the world of acting back in the early 90s. And the successes of his past is a reflection of the genius that Giamatti continues to give us in each of his roles. Let's take a look back to remember some...

After attending the Yale School of Drama, where he studied acting with Earle R. Gister, Giamatti worked in several theatrical productions (some of them on Broadway) before making the leap in the early 1990s, first to television, then to film.

That decade Giamatti established himself as a secondary actor, working, for example, twice with Woody Allen in 'Mighty Aphrodite' (1995) and 'Deconstructing Harry' (1997), although it was in the comedy 'Private Parts' (1997), where he had his first significant role as Kenny 'Pig Vomit' Rushton.

In the last two years of the century he worked in four productions that ended up thrusting him into the Hollywood limelight 'The Truman Show' , 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'The Negotiator', all in 1998; and 'Man on the Moon', in 1999.

He extended his success into the 21st century and continued impress in roles that led to nominations and the occasional major award.

Among those films is 'American Splendor' (2003), directed by Shari Springer Bermanen and Robert Pulcini, winning the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Giamatti plays Harvey Pekar, a Cleveland hospital employee who wryly recounts the life of working-class Americans through comic books.

After 'Sideways' (2004), his first film with Alexander Payne, he starred in 'Cinderella Man', a story based on the life of former heavyweight champion James J. Braddock. Giamatti played Joe Gould, a role for which he was nominated for an Oscar as best supporting actor and won at the Choice Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

The first decade of the 2000s would be completed with two quite remarkable films 'Lady in the Water' (2006), by M. Night Shyamalan; and the television miniseries 'John Adams', directed by Tom Hooper, and where he played the second president in the history of the United States.

In 2010 he starred in the Canadian film 'Barney's Version', alongside Dustin Hoffman and Rosamund Pike, where he played the role of Barney Panofsky. His magnificent performance won his second Golden Globe for best actor after the one achieved two years earlier for his work in 'John Adams'.

In those triumphant years he accumulated a total of two Golden Globes ('Barney's Version' and 'John Adams'); four Screen Actors Guild Awards ('Sideways,' 'Cinderella Man,' 'John Adams' and 'Too Big to Fail'; two Critics Choice Awards ('Sideways' and 'Cinderella Man'); an Independent Spirit Award ('Sideways'); and a Primetime Emmy ('John Adams'), among many other accolades.

In the second decade of the 2000s, Giamatti did not stop appearing on the big screen with some well-known films such as 'The Ides of March' (2011); '12 Years a Slave' (2013); 'Saving Mr. Banks', (2013); and 'San Andreas' (2015), among others.

On a personal note, Paul Giamatti continues to be happily married and living at home in Brooklyn (New York) with Elizabeth Cohen, whom he married in 1997. Elizabeth Cohen is the mother of his only son, Samuel Paul, who was born in 2001.

As a face many would recognise, this actor has been around a long time and knows what it takes to stay in the Hollywood game. Paul Giamatti is still there and still has a lot to offer us...