Alumni TO WATCH
Steven Strait ’04 By Shawna Gallagher Vega In The Expanse, the acclaimed Syfy series in which he stars, Steven Strait ’04 plays Jim Holden, 2nd Officer of the ice hauler Canterbury. Strait fell in love with the storyline while reading the books that inspired it—a testament to the appreciation and critical analysis of literature he developed at Xavier. “I had a multitude of amazing teachers,” the Greenwich Village native recalled of his high school years. “Ms. [Margaret] Gonzalez, in particular, was an incredible English teacher. Learning how to take texts and interpret them myself allowed me to break down prose on stage and on film.” During his time on 16th Street, Strait already envisioned an acting career. As a model and student at the famed Stella Adler Studio of Acting, his work often took him away from Xavier. He is still grateful for the flexibility his alma mater offered him. “Fr. Ciancimino was incredible to me—very supportive of my career and ambitions,” Strait recalled of then-Headmaster Rev. David Ciancimino, S.J. ’77. “Everyone knew how seriously I took my career.” Even though he achieved a coup as a student by escaping the hair code (“I was allowed to have my hair longer, past my ears. I brought a letter from my agency to get permission,” he recalled with a laugh), Strait absorbed the rigor for which a Xavier education has long been known. “Xavier really taught me how to build my own self-discipline,” he said. “I took a lot of the lessons I learned at Xavier, and I still use them to make myself a little better every day.” After graduating from high school, Strait headed for Los Angeles and quickly encountered success. “I got incredibly fortunate and booked a movie. There’s an element of fortune and luck to acting,” he said. In the years that followed, he snagged roles in 10,000 B.C. (opposite Camilla Belle), City Island (starring Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies), and the Starz series Magic City. Currently, he films The Expanse in Toronto, but he tries to get home to New York as often as he can. “The lovely thing about a career in the arts is that you can still be a student,” Strait said. “I love my job. It’s a supremely interesting art form for me.”
14 XAVIER MAGAZINE