Cynthia Erivo: The Wicked Star On Defying Gravity – And Convention

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo

by Ellen E Jones |
Published on

In Wizard Of Oz spin-off Wicked, Cynthia Erivo plays ostracised outcast Elphaba. Being off-kilter, though, says the actor, has always been a badge of honour

There was no yellow brick road laid out for Cynthia Erivo to follow.

Instead, the British-Nigerian has found her own way, from a show-stealing solo in her south London primary’s nativity play (‘Silent Night’; not a dry eye in the house), to a multi-hyphenate, multi-award-winning career, spanning stage, screen and latterly, the recording studio. This month, 37-year-old Erivo stars as Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, alongside Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh, in the big-screen adaptation of Wicked, the Wizard Of Oz spin-off and hit Broadway musical. It’s a role she feels she’s “innately understood” even before being offered it, from experiencing the musical, and there have been plenty more sing-along adventures en route to this dream-come-true.

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo

Throughout, she’s forged her own path. In the few short years since Erivo moved stateside in 2015 (at Oprah’s personal invitation) to play Celie in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, she’s shaved off all her hair, for good; starred in her debut movie, Widows — for Steve McQueen, and alongside Viola Davis, no less; shared a tearful, hand-holding moment with unlikely new bestie Jeff Bridges (more of which later) while prepping for her tour de force turn in Bad Times At The El Royale; learned to sing like Aretha Franklin for a TV biopic; impressed as Harriet Tubman in the abolitionist action-hero’s big-screen outing Harriet, then performed the song from the movie — which she also co-wrote — live at the 2020 Oscars. Phew.

She’s also done all of this while being unapologetically, uniquely herself. Maybe Cynthia Erivo is the kind of indefatigable, ever-evolving talent that Hollywood struggles to keep up with — but that’s okay. Because she knows exactly where she’s going. With or without a yellow brick road.

How did Wicked come into your life?

The first time I heard of Wicked was back in drama school. A friend of mine who played the piano said, “There’s this musical that I think you’d really, really like. We should take the book to a room and sing it when we can.” I’d never seen the show, I just fell in love with this music. So whenever we had time to be on our own, in a room with a piano, that’s the music we were singing. By the time I left drama school, I knew it like the back of my hand. Then, on my 25th birthday, I decided to take myself on a date to see the show in the West End. I remember having the most incredible experience, watching the story about this person who feels different— is different — and is ostracised because they are different. But at the same time, they’re also really, really powerful, and the thing that unlocks that [power] is an acceptance of who they are.

"Having shaved my hair off, it’s one of the most freeing things I could have ever done for myself."

So you saw some of yourself in that?

I’ve felt different my whole entire life. I think I just am. I think I’m an oddball. And that’s okay. I think the way I look at style and beauty is different and just... I think every Black woman walking around in this world feels a little bit outside of the norm, because we don’t necessarily fit what is meant to be the norm. So, as someone who is Black, British, African, an actor, gay, the whole lot... That’s just what I am, and I think I’ve leaned into my difference; into my ‘rebel’, I guess.

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo
©Empire/Mark Seliger

And now in Wicked you’re... green. What was it like being green? Was Kermit The Frog right about that one?

It was really comfy! I think, depending on what we were doing for the day, it could take anything from two-and-a-half hours to four-and-a-half hours [in the make-up chair]. It felt like a second skin. I was never irritated by it. I think a lot of research went into what shade would be right, what would sit on my skin in the right way and how I could take care of my skin whilst it was in the make-up. There was the option to do CGI. I was asked if I wanted to do that, or to do practical, and I knew I wanted to do practical before I even started, because I wanted to be able to look at my hands and see green hands. I wanted to look in the mirror and see a green face. I also wanted to see the reactions of other people seeing me as a green person, as opposed to me walking in as myself, because it informed how I performed.

What’s Ariana Grande like?

Delightful. We were texting last night. When people ask, “What’s she like?”, I feel like I have to explain that we’ve been together in this, doing this, at this point for, like, two-and-a-half years. So she’s like my sister. It’s not this new person that I just met, like, “She’s amazing! I love working with her! Blah blah blah...” And we love singing together, because our voices work together, which is really cool, because it’s hard to find that.

It seems like big-screen musicals are back in fashion at the moment, what with The Color Purple, Wonka, Joker: Folie À Deux and this. You must be enjoying that.

There’s something really special about a movie musical. In its essence, it becomes a spectacle, whether you like it or not. I think that we don’t give audiences enough credit when it comes to musicals, so we pretend that musicals aren’t musicals. And I think now, it’s okay to just be like, “Hey, this is a musical, come and see it, you’ll survive... and you might even like it!” I never understand when [musical haters] are like, “Why are people singing randomly?” Because people sing every day, randomly, in the middle of the street! They literally do! I have sat in cars and people are just singing along to songs! Or the amount of times where people do that passive-aggressive thing of, when something happens that they don’t like, instead of saying, “What’s going on?”, they sing the thing that’s happening. Or at football stadiums, all of a sudden, everyone is singing along together — that’s singing in real life!

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo
©Empire/Mark Seliger

Do you have any heroes that you model yourself on?

Yeah. Barbra Streisand and Cicely Tyson. I read Cicely Tyson’s autobiography, and I understood and really agreed with how she chose to navigate her career: how different it was, the choices she made in the characters and as a person; her love for fashion, and the way she used hair as a political statement. I think at one point, she decided to shave it all off too. And honestly, having shaved my hair off, it’s one of the most freeing things I could have ever done for myself. I made the decision when I left drama school to cut it. I guess I saw everyone around me committing to long hair and I just didn’t want it. I wanted to be different. And also — I don’t know why I had this insight when I was 23 — but I wanted people to see my face. I didn’t want hair to be an obstacle. So I cut it, just so it was out of my face, and as time went on, it got shorter and shorter and shorter. After Harriet, I was like, "Actually, you know what? I think I’m good.” And I just shaved it off. So I’ve been like this (entirely shaven) for the last two, three years. I like it.

Was Whoopi Goldberg also a role model for you?

Yes. (Laughs) I think I have been following in her footsteps! (Erivo has played the Goldberg-originated roles in two stage musicals, The Color Purple and Sister Act.) I’ve met her a few times and she’s just really freaking cool, man! You know sometimes you’re told that you should never meet your idols? She’s an exception to the rule. Every time I have met her, I’ve always been taken aback by how lovely she is. And real. She’s a truth-teller. She doesn’t put lots of flowers on it, but it’s never meant to hurt you. I think she’s a really wonderful human being and I think what she’s been able to do in the industry is unlike anybody else. She’s managed to be the truest form of renaissance woman that exists.

"I guess I pick the roles that scare me shitless!"

The very first film you ever made was Steve McQueen’s 2018 crime thriller Widows. That must have been a baptism of fire...

Completely! Like, I’m standing in front of Michelle Rodriguez, Viola Davis, Steve McQueen, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya... and I’d never done any film before! So I was like, “I’m going to be the student.” I desperately didn’t want to let the side down. You don’t want to be on a team where Viola Davis is the captain and you’re the weakling. You just don’t want to be there. So I really was listening all the time. And I don’t think those baptisms of fire ever stopped, because I finished The Color Purple, 2017, January 8 — my 30th birthday — and then I went into [shooting] Widows pretty soon after that. Then after Widows, we filmed Bad Times At The El Royale, where my scene partner is Jeff Bridges (laughs) and you have Jon Hamm and Dakota [Johnson] and it’s... a lot. And then I think we filmed Harriet at the end of 2018 and then I started working on [Genius:] Aretha.

So within an 18-month period you’re meeting and working with a lot of big-deal movie stars and legends. Did you ever feel starstruck?

Are you joking? I’m sitting in front of Jeff Bridges and... yes! [But] you have to suppress it a little bit. I guess it’s making sure you see a person as human, and Jeff and I had a really beautiful, human moment early on. His character was supposed to have Alzheimer’s and because the two of us spent so much time together in this movie, my character cottoned on to it quite quickly. So when we were all in this room doing a script-reading, at one point he said, “Cyn...” — he calls me ‘C’ or ‘Cyn’. He said, “C, I’ve found this video of this woman who had an episode, and she has Alzheimer’s, and I felt like this would be something that could help us both?” So we sit and we watch this video, and without looking at each other, he grabs my hand, I grab his, and the both of us are just in tears. And that was one of those moments, where it’s not now, “Oh my God, it’s Jeff Bridges!”; it’s, “Oh, it’s Jeff, and we’ve got something to do together, that’s the work.”

You sang live a lot on the set of Bad Times At The El Royale. What was that like?

Yeah, every piece of music I did on that set I did live. There’s a particular scene where the song is ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, which we did about 27 times in a row, because it was shot in a oner (a single, continuous take), so it’s like a pretty dance that you have to figure out how to do. But you prep for it, and I’m also really determined. So I was like, “No, we’re gonna do this, and I will do it. It’s fine.” I wanted to make sure that we actually got it done, and got it done in the best possible way, and the best possible way was to do it live, to keep going. And, I think because I come from that practice of live singing [in stage musicals], singing this song that many times didn’t scare me. Not that it wasn’t a challenge, but it didn’t scare me.

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo
©Empire/Mark Seliger

You often play these phenomenally talented-bordering-on-supernatural women — like Harriet Tubman or Aretha Franklin and now Elphaba in Wicked — in situations where they need to assert their humanity. You’re an extraordinary woman, so I wondered if you’d ever felt like your humanity was being overlooked?

That’s a really beautiful question! I think sometimes, yes. I think sometimes people see what I can do first, before they see the person. And so sometimes, even in small situations... like, I went to see a show, this piece by a really talented person, Larry Owens. It’s in a small, intimate place. I was sitting and watching, and when I’m watching I don’t tend to have my phone out. I’m the person who never really takes pictures of the things that are happening, because I’m in it, I’m experiencing it. So I’m watching the show, and I catch sight of a phone in my periphery and notice the person next to me is taking a picture of herself and me, like angling herself so she gets me. And I had to go, “Can we... Can we not do that? I want to watch this, and I think you should be watching this too.” It’s those moments we have to remind people, I’m a person as well, y’know?

You’re known for playing Americans. Any plans to come back home and work in British cinema or TV, playing a British role?

People still sometimes assume I’m American, but I don’t know why, because I spend so much time talking and whenever I’m talking, I sound like this! (well-spoken British accent) I mean, I would love to play more English roles, but you have to be cast in them.

You don’t get offered any British roles?

Rarely. We do have one film, Prima Facie (a screen adaptation of the hit play which starred Jodie Comer, about an ambitious London defence barrister), that we are going to be doing and that came to me, which is really special — that’s an English character. But it doesn’t come very often. I couldn’t tell you why. I don’t know.

"I think the freedom to do the things that you want to do is a measure of success."

The Color Purple was a massive turning-point for you. Was any part of you disappointed about not being in the film?

Ooooh. That is a long conversation. That is... erm... complicated. But I’m very glad it was Fantasia [Barrino], because I think she deserved the chance to do this again, because she did it first on Broadway and I think... she didn’t get to finish the way she deserved to. (Barrino left the run early due to illness.) So I was really glad to see that she had the chance to do this again, in this way. I think she deserved that chance. And also I think it was a really brave thing for her to say yes to doing it again. And so, I have no right to be [proud], but I’m very proud of her for taking that chance, for doing that and for taking it on. I think she was the only person that was meant to do it.

How do you choose TV and movie roles? Do you feel slightly unfulfilled if a role doesn’t involve singing?

No, I enjoy those roles just as much, because the thing is, I can sing whenever I want to and, nine times out of ten, I’ll be doing a project and there’ll be a concert that I have to go and do at the same time. I think when I get the chance to just be a character that doesn’t sing, there’s something really refreshing about that. I never felt like I was missing anything when it came to Holly [in HBO supernatural thriller The Outsider]. Even though she’s sort of to herself, very subtle, small, kooky, in another way she was so big. There was so much to do with her: her speech, her pattern, the way she sees the world, the way she moved. So I guess I pick the roles that scare me shitless! Anything that scares me, anything where I’m like, “Is this going to be a challenge? Does it freak me the heck out?” If the answer to those questions is a yes, then I’m probably going to say, “I would like to do this.”

Empire Focus – Cynthia Erivo
©Empire/Mark Seliger

You’ve already got a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy (for The Color Purple on Broadway), and you were Oscar-nominated for Harriet. A lot of people would call that successful, but what’s your personal definition of success?

I think the freedom to do the things that you want to do is a measure of success. It’s a sense of contentment, but also feeling like there’s more and that more is possible. I think that’s what success is. Because, y’know, nice, pretty things are always nice and pretty — that’s great. But the idea that I can wake up tomorrow and, if I want to, run down to a studio and figure out a song, then I can. Or, if I want to talk to a director about an idea for a film that I have, then I can. The doors are opening for me to be able to be a fully creative human being that doesn’t just do other people’s projects, but creates my own. That feels like real success to me.

Wicked comes to UK cinemas from 22 November. Originally published in the December 2024 issue of Empire. Photography by Mark Seliger.

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