How an average Joe became ‘The Holdovers’ cheered scene-stealer

Out of The Holdovers‘ premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Alexander Payne’s latest film won praise from critics for the triple-hander’s lead performances from Academy Award-nominee Paul Giamatti, Only Murders in the Building star Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and newcomer Dominic Sessa. However, at the movie’s second public screening, it was an unknown actor with one on-camera line that got the biggest reaction from audiences. 

Joe Howell couldn’t have predicted it would be him who’d bring a packed audience at Toronto’s palatial Princess of Wales Theater to a crescendo of laughter, cheers, and applause. A clerk and whiskey expert at Federal Wine & Spirits in Boston, Massachusetts, he was just at work when Payne and a crew member came in on an impromptu location scout that led to his being cast in The Holdovers. 

How Alexander Payne found the perfect Boston clerk for The Holdovers.

Before the audience at TIFF, Payne recalled how a location had fallen through for a scene set in a liquor store. So he was “scrambling” to find a replacement. He also needed someone to play the store’s clerk. This, he explained to us, was how he met “Joe.”

Via email, Federal Wine & Spirits owner Len Rothenberg told Mashable, “We were closed to customers in January 2022 when Alexander Payne and his team knocked on our door unannounced, wanting to see the store.” 

Rothenberg let them in, but Howell retreated to the store’s basement. In a phone interview with Mashable, Howell explained he had COVID at the time. Though he felt fine, he kept his distance to be “cautious in that situation.” Howell added, “I mean, why pass it along and have others have problems?” 

Rothenberg recounted what happened next: “Payne liked the place, and he and I hit it off. I think to be nice, he told me that I could be the clerk [in the movie]. I replied that it really should be Joe, because Joe had been preparing for the role for 20 years and, being a native from Dorchester, was perfect for the part.” 

At TIFF, Payne had recalled Rothenberg selling him on Howell by talking up the clerk’s love of films. Howell told Mashable that he does love films, the “older things.” Though he has seen some of Payne’s films, he noted, “I had not seen Sideways, actually.” 

Naturally, Payne asked if he could meet Howell, and that was when the director was told his could-be clerk was in the basement — with COVID. Payne suggested Rothenberg show him a photo of Howell, then described to the rapt festival audience how the latter told him to wait a moment, then went behind the counter, where he lifted up a large wooden trap door — Payne noted this was, after all, a centuries-old Boston building — and disappeared down a small spiral staircase to the unseen basement below. 

When Rothenberg returned, he held out his phone to Payne. On the screen was a snapshot. Payne described how the man in the picture was in a dark room, seemingly only lit by the flash of the camera, and surrounded by liquor boxes. The director noted that this man looked a bit surprised to have his picture snapped. Howell remembers the picture being taken but doesn’t recall if he looked at the results.

Rothenberg said of the photo, “[Joe] was sick, so he looks a little hangdog.” But it was good enough for Payne.

With Howell’s permission, Rothenberg shared the photo with Mashable: 

Joe Howell in the basement of Federal Wine & Spirits, January 2022.
Credit: Len Rothenberg

“Tell Joe he’s in,” Payne recounted to the TIFF crowd, who cheered as he made his exit. The movie had began. And we waited for Joe’s big moment. 

What is Joe Howell’s big moment in The Holdovers?

The Holdovers centers on the relationship that forms between a curmudgeonly professor (Giamatti), a mourning cook (Randolph), and a trouble-making student (Sessa) over a chilly winter break at a posh boarding school. But a field trip to Boston brings teacher and student into Rothenberg’s liquor store. 

While the TIFF audience had been laughing throughout the film, often at the ruthlessly witty insults slung by Giamatti’s irate teacher, a whole new level of excitement hit as the characters entered the liquor store. You could feel the buzz as we collectively anticipated the reveal of Joe, the movie lover who overcame COVID to score an appearance in not just any film but an Alexander Payne film destined for Oscar buzz. 

While much of the scene is focused on Giamatti and Sessa as they reveal a bit of juicy backstory, there is one shot of Joe. From behind the counter, he hands Giamatti back his purchase of a bottle of Jim Beam and says with a sensationally surly sense of boredom, “Here ya go, killer.” 

The audience of a theater that seats 2,000 exploded with cheers, applause, and even shouts of “Joe!” I’m told that even without this anticipatory anecdote, Howell’s line delivery scored laughs at press screenings and the film’s international premiere the night before. 

When I reached out to Howell — initially through email — and told him about the response of TIFF, he wrote back that with this news “a smile ear to ear came upon my face.” Later, over the phone, he shared that Payne had texted Rothenberg that “[Joe’s] was the funniest line in the movie.”

“Very proud of that,” Howell shared.

And just like that, an average Joe stole the spotlight for a brief but powerful moment at one of the world’s most revered festivals, during one of its most-anticipated Special Presentations. Good for Joe. 

The Holdovers is now playing in theaters everywhere.