January 23, 2024
Sthanlee B. Mirador/Sipa USA
Dominic Sessa, who made his big-screen debut in 'The Holdovers' alongside Philly's Da'Vine Joy Randolph, was born and raised in South Jersey. The 21-year-old earned a Critics' Choice Award for his role as a disgruntled student.
Philly-native actress Da'Vine Joy Randolph is receiving acclaim for her performance in "The Holdovers," but there's another local actor in the film who is generating buzz for his very first big-screen role.
Dominic Sessa, 21, was born in Cherry Hill and grew up in Egg Harbor Township and Ocean City. Sessa was a senior at a Massachusetts boarding school when he earned the role of troubled teen Angus Tully in "The Holdovers," which was using his school as a filming location.
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"The Holdovers," directed by Alexander Payne, follows a group of workers and students at an all-boys prep school who become unlikely companions when they are forced to stay on the New England campus over the Christmas break in 1970. On Tuesday, the film was nominated for five Oscars, including best picture and a nod to Randolph for best supporting actress.
In the movie, Paul Giamatti stars as the strict, unpopular instructor Paul Hunham who must wrangle the "holdovers" — students who cannot return home for the break — alongside the school's grief-stricken head cook, Mary Lamb (Randolph). Sessa plays the ever-sarcastic Tully, who's doomed to the holdover fate after his mother abruptly cancels a family trip. Although other students are initially stuck on campus, Tully is soon left alone with Hunham and Lamb.
"Sessa’s in his first movie, but he’s a natural," New York Times critic Wesley Morris wrote in a review of the film. "He can do that adolescent kind of perceptiveness. He can capture 'rash,' 'naïve' and 'astutely attentive.'"
Along with rave reviews for his debut, Sessa earned the Critics' Choice Award for best young actor. His talent, fashion sense and floppy-haired good looks are earning him buzz (and even fan accounts) online, although he claims to be "ignorant" to the internet and its many social media platforms. He did tell GQ he hopes to "bring sideburns back," though, acknowledging his signature hairstyle.
Despite his "natural" abilities, Sessa sort of stumbled into acting, literally. He told the New York Times that while attending the exclusive Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, where he was part of a competitive hockey program, he broke his femur in a skateboarding accident. His injury put an end to his hopes of playing college hockey. To pass the time and because he was required to enroll in an extracurricular course, he began taking drama classes.
How Sessa earned his breakout role also is a good story. Casting for the "The Holdovers" reached out to drama departments at schools where the film was shooting to scout actors. Deerfield's theater director recommended 12 students, including Sessa, for auditions, according to NJ.com.
Sessa continued impressing the casting department, advancing through rounds of auditions. Unlike his onscreen character, Sessa traveled home to Somers Point for the holidays during his senior year. (His mother, an English and theater teacher at Lower Cape May Regional High School, relocated there after Sessa began boarding school.)
He was working on an essay for school ahead of the latest round, a Zoom call with Giamatti and Payne. The call was spent reading through the entire script. At the end, Payne nonchalantly asked whether Sessa would like to be in his movie.
"I shut my laptop and I never looked back at that essay," Sessa told NJ.com. He immediately told his mother, who started sobbing. The rest is history.
On set, Sessa bonded with Giamatti and Randolph, who both scored Golden Globes for their roles in "The Holdovers," and also learned more about himself as an actor.
"I think obviously working with Paul and Da’Vine, it’s given me that assurance that I can go toe to toe with the best of them," Sessa told Harper's Bazaar. "That’s not to say that in an arrogant way. Beyond just what we were able to accomplish together with the performances, I found my ability to create relationships with them, find similarities, and connect with them as people. That’s another thing that gives me the confidence to work with some really cool people, hopefully, in the future."
He also said that Randolph, who spent part of her childhood in Mount Airy and attended Temple University, was "very invested" in Sessa's education.
Despite discarding an essay out of excitement for being offered a movie role, Sessa did graduate from Deerfield in 2022. He then started college at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama. Now in his sophomore year in the acting conservatory, Sessa took a leave to attend awards season events for "The Holdovers."
What's next for Sessa? He told NJ.com he'd like to continue acting in movies and pursue theater.
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