She was set to play the lead in “Aida,” so Randolph went to the theater department to get a little acting training. The music department apparently didn’t like that, mandating that she switch majors from opera to theater against her will. At first, she was heartbroken. But Randolph’s degree got her admitted to the lauded Yale School of Drama, which eventually helped her land an agent, which resulted in a breakout role in Broadway’s original production of “Ghost,” which netted her a Tony nomination at age 26.

That’s how things tend to go for Randolph, who is now 34. One setback yields a thousand other victories. Right before COVID-19 broke out, she was a fan favorite on Hulu’s “High Fidelity,” but the show got canceled several months later. In the interim, however, she received more offers — coveted industry-speak for projects that don’t require auditions — than ever in her life, including a blockbuster so high-profile I’m forbidden from disclosing its title. Let’s just say the pay is probably good.

Randolph’s profile has been rising ever since she portrayed Oda Mae Brown, originally played by Whoopi Goldberg, in “Ghost,” and even more since she stole scenes from Eddie Murphy in 2019’s “Dolemite Is My Name.” Randolph said she didn’t used to think of herself as an actor, hence the opera school controversy. She especially didn’t think of herself as a comedic actor. But now she is emerging as one of Hollywood’s funniest talents, having appeared in the ABC sitcom “Selfie,” the comedy film “Office Christmas Party,” one of Robin Williams’ final movies, an episode of “Veep,” the kooky Showtime gem “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” Miranda July’s “Kajillionaire” and a forthcoming Hulu series co-starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Nathan Lane. She also has a more serious role in the awards season contender “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” playing one of the jazz titan’s loyalists.

“That’s the thing,” Randolph told me during a recent Zoom conversation. “I’m very conscious of, ‘I want to do an indie, I want to do a big commercial movie, I want to do a comedy, and I need to do a quirky art-house thing, and I need to do a TV show.’”

I’ll tell you the moment I knew Randolph would be a star. It was at the “Dolemite” premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2019. All eyes had drifted toward Murphy, who received a standing ovation before the movie even began. As it unfolded, I was focused on the woman who kept upstaging him without trying. She played Lady Reed, a forlorn single mother who gets recruited for the amateurish blaxploitation comedy that Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is making. Rudy convinces her to join his stage act, and suddenly Randolph is singing a hoedown ditty filled with innuendos. Afterward, she pulls heaps of tip money out of her bra. What follows is a laugh so gleeful you can feel it in Randolph’s soul. I immediately knew her career was about to explode.

When I told Randolph this, she said Murphy agreed.

“He was like, ‘This is your time, and this is your moment,’” Randolph said of the “Dolemite” experience. “He had been saying it throughout our filming, but on the last day, he was like, ‘I want you to get prepared because it’s about to change, and I can see it.’”

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Randolph grew up feeling like she didn’t see much of herself on-screen — that is, curvy Black women who exist as more than archetypal sidekicks. It’s not that she’s hellbent on playing leads; it’s that she wants her characters, however essential, to feel human. If she’s a security guard, like in “Office Christmas Party,” she’s going to be the most committed security guard imaginable. That’s where the humor comes from. In “Kajillionaire,” she’s a massage therapist serving a client who doesn’t like to be touched (Evan Rachel Wood). So Randolph hovers her hands over Wood’s body, perplexed but determined. She barely says a word. It’s hilarious.

“I’m conscious that I’m playing a Black woman who has a job of some sort, and so I’m never going to play, ‘Oh, I have a blue-collar job and I hate my job,’” Randolph said. “I’m always going to set this Black female up for success. What would I do if this is my job and you came here wanting to get a massage but you can’t be touched? It became like a challenge. I think where the comedy may have occurred was that it was like, ‘OK, so I’m going to touch you with my mind.’”

No item on her résumé has shattered archetypes more than her role in “High Fidelity.” Randolph’s character, Cherise, is an aspiring musician who works at a Brooklyn record shop and has a spirited braggadocio that hides her vulnerability. Early on, Randolph and co-star Zoë Kravitz told the writers they wanted Cherise to have limitless taste. Her references couldn’t only be The Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill. In a memorable scene from the first episode, Cherise struts into the store and puts on the British rock hit “Come On Eileen.” Dancing around, she proclaims, “This song is dope as shit!”

“We were very keen on it being eclectic,” Randolph said of Cherise’s style. “While her clothing is very much still streetwear, we wanted to give the vibe that she’s into clothes. She goes to thrift stores and gets things and alters them and freaks it in a certain type of way. That’s her style. She’s urban by default because that’s where she’s been born and raised, but broaden it a bit to also show someone who has more emotional depth that isn’t just like, ‘Fuck you!’ She’s sensitive about her art. She really wants to succeed.”

Some viewers were upset that Cherise didn’t get a standalone episode like Simon (David H. Holmes), the shaggy white friend who works at the vinyl shop. But it never bothered Randolph. The writers had given her a heads up beforehand, promising to give Cherise an important arc in the second half of the season. In fact, the whole thing was kind of a relief.

“All of my roles so far have been supporting, and I take that seriously,” Randolph said. “I am doing my job, and I’m there to support everyone else around me. So I don’t get caught up on, ‘Oh, you’re not going to have an episode.’ Honestly, that show was hard. That character talked fast. That was a lot of dialogue. I had an acting coach that I was working with. Because it was so much information and the way we were shooting was so fast, honestly, when they told me, I was like, ‘OK, cool, no problem.’”

Still, it was tough for her to learn that Cherise would have been the protagonist of Season 2, a tidbit made public after the show got axed. But by that point, Randolph had moved on to the next phase of her career: developing her own series. The actor said she created or co-created three different shows during quarantine, one of which has already been set up at a production company. She needed a creative outlet, and this was the ideal way to ensure that Black women get a chance to appear in, say, a sci-fi epic. As racial justice protests surged last year, Randolph found herself writing as a means of expression.

“I remember thinking about when I was told by my parents and family members and elders of the civil rights movement how there were so many people who had so many different jobs, if you would, in the movement,” she said. “I thought about that, and I was like, ‘Where’s your strongest place right now, as the person you are now, where you can be of the biggest impact?’”

“The roles that I choose is my form of activism. How I choose to portray these women is my form of activism. And the content that I personally want to create and produce and be behind is my form of activism,” the actor added. “I want curvy women to see a woman who was fully living her life, not apologizing, who is sexual, who can get a man, who’s not just sitting at home being like, ‘I wish.’”

Randolph is fulfilling the mission she established when she interviewed to get into Yale. She’d told the chair of the acting school that her goal was to be able to play Shakespeare’s Juliet, historically the purview of thin, white women like Peggy Ashcroft, Norma Shearer and Claire Danes. Her aptitude, Randolph believed, should translate beyond her physical appearance. Now, that’s proving true.

“I was very clear,” Randolph said. “I want to have the skill set so that I can have the tools to have range and be a transformative actor and play all roles available to me as a human being.”

Credits

Hair: Chuck Amos/Statement Artists; Makeup: Ashunta Sheriff-Kendricks/Cloutier Remix