Philly natives Da’vine Joy Randolph and Colman Domingo pick up first Oscar nominations

Could 2024 be the year Philadelphians sweep several of the Oscars’ most coveted categories?

Mount Airy native Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Montco favorite son Bradley Cooper, and Overbrook-raised Colman Domingo earned a combined five nominations during the unveiling ceremony hosted by Jack Quaid and Zazie Beetz on Tuesday morning.

Randolph — who plays a grieving mother in the English prep school-set dramedy The Holdovers — was nominated for best supporting actress, a role for which she won a Golden Globe, while Domingo scored his first Oscar nom, for best actor, for his portrayal of the titular civil rights activist in Rustin.

Cooper, meanwhile, secured best actor and best original screenplay nominations for Maestro, a biography of famed conductor Leonard Bernstein, a film that was at least six years in the making and one of 10 best picture nominees.

Randolph, Domingo, Cooper, and Cooper’s screenplay cowriter, Ambler native Josh Singer, (alongside the dozens of other nominees that do not hail from Philly) will find out who won during the 96th annual Academy Awards on March 10. Here’s what to know about their nominations, plus the odds of Philly victories.

Randolph’s first Oscar nomination is for her role as Mary Lamb in The Holdovers. In it, the Temple University alum plays a cafeteria worker at a New England boarding school who, over Christmas break, befriends a curmudgeonly teacher and troublemaking student while mourning her son who was killed in the Vietnam War.

“We have all these really nice holiday stories, and that’s cool. But what is the movie for people having a different experience during the holidays?” Randolph told The Inquirer about the role. “I just love the fullness of [Lamb’s] personality, and this idea that broken people are able to come together to fill a void.”

» READ MORE: Oscar front-runner Da’Vine Joy Randolph on staying humble and her love for Sid Booker's Shrimp

Randolph, 37, got her start in theater as a lead in the 2012 Broadway thriller-musical Ghost, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She then transitioned to the screen with roles in acclaimed films such as Dolemite is My Name and The United States vs. Billie Holiday, and television shows including The Last O.G. and Only Murders in the Building.

Award show prognosticators have labeled Randolph as all but a shoe-in for best supporting actress at the Oscars after she scooped up wins at the Globe and Critic’s Choice Awards. She’s been lauded for her authentic Boston accent, sharp one-liners, and ability to capture “the weight of grief” as Lamb.

Randolph will compete against Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer), Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple), America Ferrera (Barbie), and Jodie Foster (Nyad).

Domingo received his first Oscar nomination for playing West Chester-born civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in the film Rustin, which follows the oft-forgotten and openly gay advisor to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as he works to organize the 1963 March on Washington.

“I am so over the moon with this nomination representing my fellow Pennsylvania-born Bayard Rustin. I first learned about him while at Temple University and he was a north star for me on how to be in the world. A true American hero,” said Domingo in an email to The Inquirer. “This is an extraordinary honor. I am always proud to represent as a guy from West Philly.”

Domingo, 54, recently highlighted his Philly roots in an episode of the AMC docuseries You are Here, where he takes viewers rollerskating in Northeast Philly and inside North Philly’s Max’s Steaks. Domingo grew up in a red brick West Philly rowhouse and attended Overbrook High School (with Will Smith) before majoring in journalism at Temple University.

» READ MORE: Colman Domingo’s cheesesteak order: messy, gooey, ‘falling out of my mouth and out of my hands’

Domingo is also an accomplished writer and actor who has written several plays, including the book for Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and the original play Dot, which was optioned for television in 2021. He transitioned to the screen with breakout roles as the tyrannical antagonist Victor Strand in Fear the Walking Dead and Zendaya’s Narcotics Anonymous mentor Ali in Euphoria.

Domingo is only the second openly gay man to be nominated for an Oscar for playing a gay character. He will compete against Cooper, Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers), Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer), and Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction) for best actor.

Cooper would rather have an Eagles Super Bowl win than a couple of Oscars on his mantel (sorry about that one, Coop!), but he still picked up nominations for Maestro in the best actor and best original screenplay categories alongside Singer, his writing partner.

» READ MORE: An Academy Award or an Eagles Super Bowl win? Bradley Cooper would prefer the latter

The Leonard Bernstein biopic — which Cooper also produced and directed — follows Cooper as the acclaimed composer through his journey from New York Philharmonic assistant conductor to classical music heavyweight and noted philanderer. The film has received its fair share of acclaim and controversy: After a round of antisemitism allegations targeted Cooper’s insistence on wearing a prosthetic nose to portray Bernstein, who is Jewish, the internet dunked on Cooper for taking six years to learn how to conduct music yet ultimately earning zero Golden Globes.

Cooper, who grew up in Jenkintown and attended Germantown Academy, is more or less a cultural ambassador for Philadelphia, having somehow found time to open a cheesesteak shop and film Eagles hype videos in between films.

» READ MORE: Bradley Cooper and Danny DiGiampietro of Angelo’s Pizzeria go into the cheesesteak business in NYC

Cooper has been nominated for nine Oscars across the best actor, best supporting actor, best picture, and best adapted screenplay categories since 2013 but has yet to receive a win.

Cooper will face off against Domingo in the best actor category. For original screenplay, Cooper and Singer will compete with Justine Triet and Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall), David Hemingson (The Holdovers), Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik (May December), and Celine Song (Past Lives).

Turning behind the scenes, Wynnewood’s Jennifer Lame was nominated in the film editing category for her work on Oppenheimer, the Christopher Nolan-directed retelling of the development of the atomic bomb.

Lame has already won a Critic’s Choice award for her editing work on Oppenheimer, which was nominated for 13 Oscars, including best picture. Lame had worked with Nolan previously on the 2020 thriller Tenet, as well as Greta Gerwig and Noah Bambauch on Mistress America and the Oscar-nominated Marriage Story, according to her Wikipedia page. She faces off against the editing teams from Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Holdovers, and Anatomy of a Fall in March.

Staff writer Rosa Cartagena contributed to this article