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Across the arc of her 60-year long career, Academy Award-nominated actress Amy Irving has discerningly crafted a captivatingly eclectic resume, from Shakespeare to Carrie, Arthur Miller to Yentl, Chekhov to Crossing Delancey. Shifting from acting into music with her 2023 debut album, Born In A Trunk, wasn’t something she exactly anticipated. But, as Irving explains, “I was ready to move on to something a little different, something else to light the fire in my belly. I’ve been acting since I was a baby, so it was like, okay, you can do something else now. And I’m lucky that I have something else to do.”
Always Will Be, Irving’s stunningly inventive follow-up, out April 25, 2025 via Queen Of The Castle Records, marketed and distributed by Missing Piece Records, picks up where Born In A Trunk left off. After hearing the album’s reimagined version of “I’m Waiting Forever,” a song Willie Nelson had written for Irving after meeting her on the set of 1980’s Honeysuckle Rose, the country icon was inspired. Nelson reached out to his longtime friend with a proposition: Why not record another album, one entirely of his own work? “I knew she’d probably do a lot of my songs and I knew they’d be good. You know, I’m just an old hustler,” Nelson said with a laugh. Irving agreed to the offer, collaborating again with bandleader Goolis (Jules David Bartkowski) to record 10 electrifying, genre-defying—from punk rock to samba to French pop and beyond— tracks with lively collaborations from guests Louis Cato, Steve Earle, Amy Helm, Willie Nelson, Lizzie No, and Chris Pierce.
Much like its predecessor, Always Will Be continues to tell the story of Irving’s life. Every song has a story, and though they may be penned by someone else, Irving regales each as if her own. The thread connecting them all is not only Nelson’s songwriting, but their core theme of love. “I’m a romantic person,” Irving says. “I’ve always been a romantic, and I thought the songshad a trajectory—of the first meeting to the end—through relationships. I just think the way people touch each other and connect, especially after we’ve gone through such a disconnect, touching each other’s hearts is very important.”
Over her prolific career, Amy Irving has been heralded as a “revelation” (Time), “a gifted stage actress of uncompromising integrity” (Variety) with an alluring ability “to span the full breadth of [a] character’s crazily inconsistent world” (New York Times) that is “difficult to forget” (Vanity Fair). She first came to prominence with early screen roles in Brian DePalma’s Carrie and The Fury, and stage performances of Romeo and Juliet with the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Society and Broadway’s Amadeus. Nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Yentl, Irving has captivated audiences with beloved starring roles in films like Crossing Delancey, Honeysuckle Rose, The Competition, and Micki and Maude.
On Always Will Be, Irving crafts an arresting work that couples her gift for dynamic storytelling with her talent for bringing unexpected and inspiring interpretations to the works of others with great nuance and depth. The playground may look slightly different, but the creative impulse, and deep dedication to craft, remains. “I’m finding something new,” Irving says, “And, boy, there’s nothing that makes you feel more alive.”