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, Shaka King and More Discuss Black Identity in Film
variety.comNatalie Oganesyan editorLeading Black filmmakers, producers and writers opened up about what inspired them to enter cinema and the importance of capturing the Black diasporic experience on screen during a virtual panel co-hosted by the American Cinematheque and the African American Film Critics Association.In celebration of Black History Month, the “Black Identity Through Cinema” panel featured Cynthia Erivo, Philippe Lacôte, Franklin Leonard, Ekwa Msangi and Euzhan Palcy, as well as Shaka King and Kemp Powers, both of whom were named Variety’s 2020 “Screenwriters to Watch.” The conversation, moderated by AAFCA president Gil Robertson, explored the diversity of Black identity in film and how the panelists’ works delve into core themes of.
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