Paul Giamatti’s Eye in ‘The Holdovers’: Is It Real? Everything He’s Said About It Revealed!

If you watch Paul Giamatti in the new movie The Holdovers, you might be left wondering: is that his real eye?

The 56-year-old Oscar-nominated actor stars in the new film as a teacher at a boarding school who is forced to spend Christmas break as the guardian to a handful of students who don’t have anywhere to go for the holidays.

Paul‘s character is described as a curmudgeon with an odor problem and he also has a glass eye. Director Alexander Payne reportedly had only Paul in mind for the role.

“I was deeply touched,” he joked in an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “How can I not. The part is fantastic. It’s a fantastic part. Smelling like fish was just the cherry on top. It really was.”

So, is that his real eye?

No, it’s not! That’s not what Paul looks like in real life. See a recent photo below!

In an interview with Yahoo, Paul was asked how they achieved the look of the eye. He responded, “It’s a mystery that I can’t reveal. It’s all just the magic of film and acting. I can’t tell you exactly how we did that. I’ve been sworn a secrecy, sir.”

Paul also told People, “I’m not allowed to tell you. I’m not joking. It’s a state secret. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Alexander‘s enjoying the fact that people are wondering so much how we did it. He and I just say it’s the magic of acting in cinema. That’s what it is. It’s just movie magic.”

Dominic Sessa, who plays the young student in The Holdovers, talked about the eye with The Daily Beast.

“It definitely messes you up,” he said. “It helped to get into the character more, because when his eye is doing that, it changes his whole face, his whole aura about him. You really see him for the character—he loses all of his Paul Giamatti.”

When asked if the eye was created with CGI, Dominic said, “I have the same questions. It was a great frustration of mine! I was not made privy to any of that information. I don’t know if it was pure acting, I don’t know if they had an eye contortionist, I don’t know what they did. I would see him on set, and his eye would be messed up, and then I’d see him when we wrapped and his eye would be… not messed up? If I asked him, he would just say, ‘It’s acting.’ I guess I’ll just take his word for it.”

Did you see that Paul has joined the cast of an HBO show’s second season?