Cynthia Chinasaokwu Onyedinmanasu Erivo (/əˈriːvoʊ/( ə-REE-voh; born 8 January 1987) is a British actress and singer. She has received several accolades, including a Daytime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Toy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards. She is one of only a few artists to have received nominations for the EGOT. Erivo made her West End debut in the stage musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (2011). She later made her Broadway debut playing Celie, a woman suffering abuse in the Deep South, in the musical revival of The Colour Purple from 2015 to 2017. Her work earned her the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album. She expanded to films in 2018 with the crime films Widows and Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up," which gained her a nomination for Best Original Song. She has since starred as Elphaba in the musical fantasy film Wicked (2024). On television, she played Holly Gibney in the HBO crime drama miniseries The Outsider (2020) and Aretha Franklin in National Geographic's anthology series Genius: Aretha (2021), the latter of which earned her a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress. As a singer, she has released singles as well as her solo album, Ch. 1 Vs. 1 (2021). Description above from the Wikipedia article Cynthia Erivo, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
