Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo (born 8 January 1987) is an English actress, singer, and songwriter.
She is known for her performance as Celie in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album, and the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Performance in a Daytime Program, the latter two she shared with the rest of the cast.
Erivo ventured into films in 2018, with roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. In 2019, she portrayed abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet, for which she earned nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Cynthia Erivo has officially announced her forthcoming debut album titled Ch. 1 Vs. 1. The ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood recipient will be releasing her album filled with original music on September 17 via Verve Records.“It would be a wasted opportunity to not express all that I am,” Erivo said in a press release about her long-anticipated debut album.
Ch. 1 Vs. 1 will feature a taste of something sonically for every listener from the gospel-infused ballads to alternative R&B and pop jams. “This is probably one of the first times I’ll get to just be myself, and be myself fully.”Described as an “anthemic pop-soul single,” Erivo’s first single “The Good” was co-written by herself and the accompanying music video unapologetically displays.
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