- Born in Philadelphia, Da’Vine Joy Randolph planned to become a singer. She studied classical singing, and her role models were opera singers such as Maria Callas
- She became interested in acting only during her studies, and also started appearing in musicals, including: in spirit”
- Over the past few years, she has appeared in the series “Empire”, “This is Us”, “Crimes Next Door” and “Idol”
- You can find more such stories on the Onet home page
Da’Vine Joy Randolph was born in Philadelphia on May 21, 1986. She did not plan to become an actress, but associated her future career with people. “I knew I wanted to serve people in some way and do something that would make people feel better,” she said in a 2022 interview with W magazine.
As a teenager, she loved music more than film and planned to become an R’n’B singer. Her greatest inspirations were performers from the legendary Motown label and opera singers such as Maria Callas. She considered opera the greatest form of art and began studying classical singing at Temple University in Philadelphia.
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The beginnings were full of doubts, then she met Al Pacino
At university, she learned the secrets of working in musical theater, but something else caught her attention. “I once looked through the crack in the door and it turned out that acting classes were taking place inside,” she said, quoted by Broadway. “I stood there and watched. It sounds cliché, but it was at that moment that I discovered something in myself,” she confessed.
After graduating, she moved to Los Angeles and hired an agent. However, she was not sure whether she would get any roles in Hollywood. “I had a distorted view of what attractiveness and branding were,” she said in an interview with “W” in 2022. “The way I looked, the color of my skin, the texture of my hair — I thought it wouldn’t be desirable in the industry,” she admitted.
The Hartman Group / Getty Images As Oda Mae Brown in the musical version of “Ghost”, 2012
Her first major role was as Oda Mae Brown in the musical version of “Ghost” – the same role for which Whoopi Goldberg won her Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1991. Soon after, she lost her voice, which had a significant impact not only on her performances, but also on her well-being.
At that difficult moment, she received words of support from Al Pacino himself. She met him in a cafe in Manhattan. As she recalled years later in an Instagram post, the actor entered into a conversation with her and then said: “I see you and you are exactly where you should be. Climb that ladder.”
He doesn’t watch himself on screen
Over the next few years, Randolph did just that – climb through the ranks. She appeared in the series “This Is Us”, “Empire”, “Selfie” and “The Figure”, and in 2019 she played alongside Eddie Murphy in the film “My Name Is Dolemite”. Randolph later admitted in an interview with Vanity Fair that she didn’t know who would play the main role in the film. “If I knew [że to Murphy]”I wouldn’t be able to do it,” she admitted.
Later, she appeared in the comedy “The Lost City” with Sandra Bullock, in the comedy-crime hit “Crimes Next Door” and in the famous HBO series “Idol”, where for many critics she was one of the few bright spots in the production.
As she admitted in an interview with the New York Times, she never watches herself on screen, and she saw her Oscar-winning performance in “Winter Solstice” only once and not of her own free will. “If I start watching myself, I know myself enough to know that I will start judging myself. I love that I can work in a mode without such judgment. Most actors can’t, so I try to keep it that way,” she said.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images Da’Vine Joy Randolph during her acceptance speech at the Oscars
Receiving an Oscar on Sunday evening for the role of school cook Mary Lamb in “Winter Solstice”, the actress did not hide her emotion and thanked the women who supported her in her career. She also referred to something that worried her at the beginning of her path to fame: “I always wanted to be different. Now I realize that I just have to be myself,” she said from the stage at the Dolby Theater. “I pray to God that I can do it more than once,” she added.
Currently, you can also see her on Netflix in the film “Rustin”, where she plays the “queen of gospel music” Mahalia Jackson. Interestingly, this is a role that was played a few years earlier by another black actress nominated this year — Danielle Brooks.