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.
Michelle Yeoh doesn’t play it safe when it comes to her career which ultimately led her to nabbing the Best Actress Oscar award for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Now, the Academy Award-winning star is saying that taking on the role in the Wicked musical was a “risk.” “I’m trying something new right now — filming Jon Chu’s Wicked movie, which will be my first musical,” Yeoh said during the Fifth Annual Meihodo International Youth Visual Media Festival in Japan. (via EW) “It’s very exciting, and I can’t wait for you all to see it.
It was a risk, but you will never know which doors will open for you unless you try them all.” Yeoh will be playing the role of Madame Morrible, the headmistress of Shiz University’s Crage Hall where Elphaba and Glinda attend, in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical.
The star will be teaming up again with Chu after working on Crazy Rich Asians in 2018. Wicked will be broken into two parts with Wicked Part One slated to drop on Wednesday, Nov.
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