When I bring up this year’s Golden Globes, you’re probably going to think about Jo Koy’s opening monologue. But this article isn’t about him, nor is it about a “721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book.” It’s not even about “a plastic doll with big boobies.” Before you get bummed and leave, check out Jo Koy Bombs at 81st Golden Globes if you want to read about Jo Koy’s disaster. Back to this article, it is about a local woman becoming an award-winning actress!

Da’Vine Joy Randolph is from Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, and she attended Temple University. There, she got her bachelor’s degree in classical vocal performance. She became interested in acting when she attended Yale School of Drama to get her Masters.

The Golden Globe she won was the Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture. She received this award for her performance as Mary, a widowed lunch lady mourning her son, on The Holdovers. I won’t give any spoilers for the movie, but I will say it is worth watching and makes a great Christmas movie… but not as good as Die Hard in my opinion, but I’ve said enough about that in a different article, Die Hard: A Christmas Classic .

Da’Vine’s reign didn’t just end there however, because at the Critics’ Choice Awards she once again won for best supporting actress, and she is also nominated for an Oscar.

”To Alexander Payne, thank you for giving me the opportunity to portray this beautiful and flawed woman… and to the character, Mary. You have changed my life, you have made me feel seen in so many ways I’ve never imagined, and I hope I helped you all find your inner Mary, because there’s a little bit of her in all of us. We did it!” Da’Vine said when accepting her Golden Globe.

As mentioned in her acceptance speech, her character is far from two dimensional. Her devotion to the character is also evident, but just how devoted she really was while filming is fascinating.

When on “Late Night with Seth Meyers”, he brought up how she told the director, Alexander Payne, that she wanted to actually cook while filming, and Da’Vine talked about it.

“So I really love to cook… I needed something with my hands, and I knew that it would ground me in the character,” she said.

She continued to talk about how supportive the director was of this.

“He basically was like, ‘Okay, what is the Christmas menu?’ and so I got to pick out what the Christmas menu was,” De’Vine said.

Her efforts in getting into character didn’t end here, she went a lot further than cooking and picking the meals.

“I am not a smoker at all. I’m a vocalist, so no, no, no… and as I was doing the fake ones… the smoke would like, plume out like it was a cigar and it would cover my face up, and I would still be talking, but the big cloud of smoke is over my face and I was like ‘Well, that’s not going to work,’ and so I was nervous that I was going to get addicted so I tried different brands,” she said.

She ended up finding a brand that she could easily quit, but this still shows how determined she was to do her character justice.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph isn’t just a one hit wonder. If you want to see more of her, she is also in the series Only Murders in the Building, The Idol, Empire, and other popular series and movies.