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.
Red carpet performance helped Cynthia Erivo land Aretha role
msn.comGallery: Britney Spears's life in pictures (Espresso) "I got a call a couple of days after from my agent, who said they'd seen the tape and were doing this series and they wanted me to come on board. "The actress briefly met Franklin before she died when the Queen of Soul came to see her perform in The Color Purple on Broadway.
They met up backstage after the concert and the Brit said: "She was just really funny and sweet. " Genius: Aretha premieres on the National Geographic channel and streaming service Hulu from Sunday.
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