At Fordham, Irving recruits new students and oversees all performance majors, particularly in their last year when they present their work to casting directors, agents, and managers. 

“I’m making sure they’re really bridging their academic experience into the professional industry,” said Irving. 

On top of helping students ready their portfolios, websites, and showcase reels, Irving helps develop her students’ talents through courses like “Creating a Character.” 

“The goal was: Don’t be afraid to go all the way,” she said of that course. “It was really pushing them to their extremes—playing really young and playing really old [characters], playing creatures, taking on things they hadn’t done before. Just getting out of their comfort zone in a safe and fun way.”

As an actress and acting educator, we knew she would have strong opinions on the best performances of 2024. Here, she shares her picks ahead of the March 2 Oscars ceremony.

1. Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown

Chalamet’s ability to capture Bob Dylan’s essence, both in physicality and performance, stood out to Irving as one of the year’s most remarkable acting feats. He is up for best actor. 

“Timothée Chalamet was just brilliant. He embodied Bob Dylan while still being himself.”

2. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in Wicked

Chauntee admired the performances of both stars in this film adaptation of the musical prequel to the Wizard of Oz about Glinda the Good Witch, played by Grande, nominated for best supporting actress, and the future Wicked Witch, played by Erivo, nominated for best actress. 

“I loved Wicked. It was so well done. … Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were amazing. I am rooting for them both, but I think Cynthia is the front-runner for best actress.”

3. Colman Domingo in Sing Sing

If there is one film and performance Irving would recommend for the season, it’s Colman Domingo in Sing Sing, a film about a prison theater program that helps the inmates find their humanity again. Domingo, who is nominated for best actor, plays the program’s director, and most of the film’s actors were actual inmates from Sing Sing who participated in the program, known as Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). 

“So much of what they share about their direct experience and their art on screen reminds me why we need art, empathy, and each other to go through life’s hardest and potentially most deeply transformative moments,” said Irving. “We all need community to remind us that life is hard and we cannot do it alone.”

4. Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl

When a long-running Las Vegas revue announces it will close, one of its performers, played by Anderson, confronts her life’s choices. Though overlooked for an Oscar nomination—unfairly, said Irving—the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes both nominated Anderson for best actress.

“The whole film was really beautiful, but she was just so wonderful,” said Irving. “Watching her on screen, you could tell that she was just wide open, almost as if it was the story of her through a different lens. It was just so honest and beautiful to watch.”

The film made Putnam’s groundbreaking work, Bowling Alone, feel more relevant than ever, Gibson said. Originally published in 2000, the book traces America’s waning civic engagement back to our dwindling participation in social activities, from PTA committees to Sunday Mass. Today, Putnam’s work still informs our current moment: The Atlantic’s February cover story, “The Anti-Social Century,” cites his research throughout.

At Fordham, Putnam will be speaking about his most recent book, The Upswing, which offers a hopeful perspective on our polarized political environment and growing income inequality. For our inaugural Fordham 4 interview series, we asked Gibson to name three more books that provide a ray of light in an era of uncertainty.

1. The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, by Robert Putnam

This thoroughly researched book examines how the immense gap between rich and poor during the Gilded Age of the 1800s shrank thanks to the reformist policies of the Progressive Era, and how we could repeat history to become a more equitable society again.

“Putnam revives an old story about how we can actually overcome the current plague of social isolation and civic dissolution,” Gibson said. “Dare we hope for hope?”

2. Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, by Tom Holland

For anyone who fears that our culture is leaning further and further away from religion—as Gibson does—Holland’s compelling history of Christianity is a hopeful reminder of its eternal relevance.

“If you are a Christian who worries that we are facing nothing but the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” (as Matthew Arnold had it) of faith in retreat, then read Tom Holland on Christianity’s remarkable legacy and, perhaps, a vision for our future.” Gibson said. “It’s also a great read.” He notes that “Holland is NOT the Spider-Man guy” but he is part of “The Rest Is History” podcast duo—which is worth checking out, too.

3. Kindred Spirits: Friendship and Resistance at the Edges of Modern Catholicism, by Brenna Moore 

Against the backdrop of polarized, interwar Europe in the early to mid-20th century, Theology Department Chair Brenna Moore examines a group of Catholic historians, theologians, poets, and activists whose “spiritual friendship” helped them navigate the era’s social and political challenges.

“I found this work by our colleague in Fordham’s theology department a wonderful, consoling, and informative read—a remarkable combination of scholarship and narrative storytelling that is perfect for our times,” said Gibson.

4. Men in Dark Times, by Hannah Arendt 

In this collection of profiles, Arendt spotlights men and women including Rosa Luxemburg, Isak Dinesen, Bertolt Brecht, and Walter Benjamin doing incredible, illuminating work even in the bleakest moments of the early 1900s.

“My favorite (no surprise) is the essay on Pope John XXIII,” said Gibson, a papal expert and author who covered the Vatican and Catholic Church for years as a Religion News Service reporter. “It features the best-ever title: ‘A Christian on St. Peter’s Chair.’”