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.
‘Halloween’ Producer David Thwaites To Head Up TV & Film For Podcast Studio Audio Up
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: Audio Up, the podcast studio behind series from the likes of Anthony Anderson and James Ellroy, is ramping up its moves into TV and film.The company, run by Jared Gutstadt, has hired Halloween and Black Swan producer David Thwaites to head up its nascent moving picture division.Thwaites has been tasked with helping to create scripted audio series with established writers and oversee the film and TV development and production of its podcast IP.Audio Up series include sci-fi synth-pop musical Sonic Leap, led by Anderson, The Playboy Interview with Michael Shannon, Midnight at the Sun Diner starring Shea Whigham, Ellroy’s Hollywood Death Trip and Bedtime Stories of the Ingleside Inn with Jason Alexander and Lance Bass as well as Halloween in Hell featuring Machine Gun Kelly and Uncle Drank featuring Dennis Quaid and Gary Busey.The company has a number of partnerships in this space, including a deal with MGM Studios, which invested $4.5M in the company in 2020, and a film and TV partnership with fledgling management and production firm Range Media Partners.Hollywood has been snapping up podcast IP to turn into television series and films such as Amazon’s Homecoming and Apple’s The Shrink Next Door with hundreds of other projects in development.Thwaites has spent time working at Peter Berg and Michael Lombardo’s Film 44, Miramax and Mike Medavoy’s Phoenix Pictures and recently produced John Ridley’s Needle in a Timestack, starring Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Freida Pinto and Orlando Bloom.“I’m thrilled to join Jared and Audio Up – they are true trailblazers in premium audio storytelling.
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