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.
Universal Pictures looks to be pretty excited about its upcoming adaptation of the global Broadway hit Wicked as the studio is moving up Wicked Part Two to November 26, 2025.
The film was originally set to bow on Christmas 2025, with Wicked Part One opening worldwide on November 27, 2024. Jon Chu is directing both films with Cynthia Erivo set to play Elphaba and Ariana Grande on board to play Glinda.
The original musical tells the untold story of the witches of Oz, where the two forge an unlikely sisterhood and will empower each other in ways that neither foresees.
But as dark forces of prejudice and oppression loom on the horizon, the choices they make will separate them, and will set them on different destinies that will change them, and Oz, for good.
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