Cynthia Erivo has collected multiple Tony, Grammy, and Emmy honors as an actress and vocalist, deploying her range and commanding stage presence in portrayals of Harriet Tubman and Aretha Franklin. Her first West End appearance came in 2011, after which she accumulated further prizes, among them the Tony for best actress in a musical for playing Celie in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple. Her feature-film bow arrived with Steve McQueen’s 2018 crime drama Widows. Rapidly ascending in both Hollywood and music circles, she earned Academy Award nominations for best actress and best original song (“Stand Up”) for the 2019 biopic Harriet. On the recording side, she joined the Verve roster and delivered her first solo project, the album Ch. 1 Vs. 1, in 2021. Later, her interpretation of Elphaba in Wicked: Part I (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025) produced additional recognition, including U.K. Top Ten and Hot 100 Top 50 placements for the single “Defying Gravity.”
Born Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo to Nigerian parents in South London, she initially pursued music psychology at university before completing her training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Following early work on smaller stages, her initial West End part was Madeleine in the 2011 production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She subsequently toured Britain in Sister Act and took the role of Celie in an off-West End staging of the musical The Color Purple. Returning to the West End, she appeared at the London Palladium in I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical. While maintaining a London theater career, she made her television debut with a guest role on the 2015 comedy Chewing Gum. That October she issued the collaborative album Cynthia Erivo and Oliver Tompsett Sing Scott Alan alongside her fellow stage performer. One month later, previews began for the Broadway revival of The Color Purple with Erivo again cast as Celie; the production opened at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on December 10, 2015.
In early 2016 the Broadway label released the New Broadway Cast Recording of The Color Purple, spotlighting Erivo with fellow cast members Danielle Brooks and Jennifer Hudson, the latter making her Broadway debut. Erivo received the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical that June, while the show itself won Best Revival of a Musical and the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. Additional 2016 credits included appearances on the British series Mr. Selfridge and The Tunnel. In 2017 an Emmy arrived after her musical performance promoting The Color Purple on NBC’s Today show was named Outstanding Musical Performance in a Daytime Program; she also introduced a recurring character on Broad City. Her first screen role came in 2018 with Steve McQueen’s Widows.
Erivo portrayed Harriet Tubman in the 2019 biopic Harriet, securing an Academy Award nomination for best actress and a second for best original song for “Stand Up,” which she co-wrote with Joshuah Brian Campbell and Gabe Fox-Peck. The track also received a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media. Subsequent projects included the HBO miniseries The Outsider and the role of Aretha Franklin on National Geographic’s anthology series Genius. Three months after the March 2021 premiere of Genius, she issued her debut Verve single, “The Good.” Several further tracks preceded the September arrival of the album Ch. 1 Vs. 1, which entered the Billboard Top Album Sales chart at number 77.
The next year she played The Blue Fairy in Robert Zemeckis’s live-action Pinocchio. In 2023 Erivo starred in and co-produced the refugee drama Drift, appeared opposite Idris Elba in Luther: The Fallen Sun, and returned to Broadway for a one-night cameo in Gutenberg! The Musical! June 2024 brought a concert presentation of the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music at Lincoln Center. Late that year she and Ariana Grande scored a U.K. Top Ten hit (and U.S. Hot 100 Top 50 entry) with their rendition of “Defying Gravity” from the screen adaptation of the Broadway musical Wicked; Erivo’s solo track “I’m Not That Girl” also reached the Hot 100. Starring as the green-skinned Elphaba opposite Grande’s Glinda, the film proved a commercial success, and the soundtrack to December’s Wicked: Part I debuted at number two on the Billboard 200. The second installment, Wicked: For Good, is scheduled for late 2025.
