Who’s having a better 2024 than Paul Giamatti? Probably no one. In the last two weeks the beloved actor has a) won his third Golden Globe, b) celebrated that by going to In-N-Out Burger, c) revealed that he’s dating Clara Wong, who played his character’s dominatrix on Billions, and d) gushed about playing an orangutan in Tim Burton’s remake of The Planet of the Apes. Good for him! On Sunday he won yet another trophy, and he made sure to note that he knew all about b).
Per Deadline, Giamatti scored Best Actor at the Critics’ Choice Awards, where he was once again honored for his role as a cheerfully disgruntled alcoholic private school teacher in The Holdovers. He began his speech by noting he’d noticed — or someone had told him — that a picture of him housing a burger at the beloved southwestern fast food chain was a smash on social media.
“Wow, guys, I didn’t think my week could get any better than going viral for eating a cheeseburger,” Giamatti cracked. “Serious guys, I need that endorsement. So let’s all just pray for me.” He added, “Everybody get their pizza in a bag, by the way? I think that’d be a good endorsement. Paul Giamatti for pizza in a bag.”
Giamatti also joked about how thanking his son would only cause him to “roll his eyes” at him. “I can hear him doing it, but I want to thank him anyway.”
He got serious, too. “I want to think about my father tonight who never saw me act professionally,” Giamatti told the crowd. “If that’s what I do is professional acting. I’m not so sure. But he was a critic. He was a literary critic. And so you couldn’t get away with anything but good work with him. So this would make him really happy. And that makes me really happy. So thank you.”
Anyway, congrats to Paul Giamatti on winning yet again for his very fine work in The Holdovers. May this not be the last trophy nor the last In-N-Out burger.
The Holdovers is now in theaters and streams on Peacock. It’s pretty good.
(Via Deadline)