At the 16th GLAMOUR Women of the Year Awards, in partnership with Samsung, we’re honouring those women who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and reshape the world. From activism to acting, our winners are working across a variety of industries to make the world a better, more equal place.
Taking home our Gamechanging Performer Award is the inimitable Cynthia Erivo, who after swapping the West End and Broadway for the big screen, is one Oscar away from being a coveted EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). As she adds her GLAMOUR Women of the Year Award to her crowded mantlepiece, Cynthia opens up about her groundbreaking year after landing the role of a lifetime, Elphaba in Wicked, and coming out…
It’s 8pm on a dreary autumnal Monday night in London when Cynthia Erivo enters the chat over Zoom. It’s been another long day of rehearsing for the movie adaption of the blockbuster musical Wicked, but Cynthia is beaming.
“I’m enjoying myself! We’re in rehearsals, everything’s coming together, it feels great,” Cynthia says coyly about playing the good-girl-turned-bad-green-witch Elphaba in the prequel to The Wizard Of Oz, opposite pop queen Ariana Grande (Glinda) and Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey (Prince Fiyero). Does it get any better than that line-up? Quite frankly, no.
It’s just another day in a year of pinch-me-moments for Cynthia. Having landed her role in Wicked – she was delivered the news by director John M Chu (who directed Crazy Rich Asians, Now You See Me 2, and In The Heights) over Zoom – she then performed Edelweiss in a tribute to Dame Julie Andrews as she won the prestigious AFI Life Achievement Award. “It was one of the most surreal experiences of my entire life because Edelweiss is one of my favourite songs, but to sing it in front of her… She was directly in front of me, just over there,” Cynthia gestures her long nails into the distance, her face still in disbelief. “She actually sent me the most beautiful letter afterwards. It was one of those moments where you go, ‘Am I here? Is this real?’” “Is the letter already hanging in the downstairs loo?” I ask. “Already getting framed,” she laughs.
Cynthia grew up in South London, raised by Nigerian parents, and says her love of performing started at just five years old (“playing a shepherd in the nativity with a tea towel on my head singing Silent Night”). By 11, she was already on the West End in the musical The Caucasian Chalk Circle. By 15, she was playing Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic, and after attending Rada, she starred in The X Factor musical I can’t Sing!, Sister Act and The Color Purple, which transferred to Broadway and won her a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy award.
That young, vibrant Cynthia has led to her becoming a multi-disciplinary performer – from a double Oscar-nominated performance as the historical gamechanger Harriet Tubman in Harriet, and picking up another Emmy nomination for playing Aretha Franklin in the anthology TV series Genius to just starring as Blue Fairy in the live-action remake of Pinocchio opposite Tom Hanks. It’s safe to say that Cynthia hasn’t just carved out a space for herself or just taken a seat at the table, she’s constructed a whole table for herself in an industry that hasn’t always made space for her.
How has Cynthia found and claimed her space, I wonder? “I just decided that I didn’t want to be boxed in… to anywhere,” Cynthia says. “I knew that I wanted to sing, so I thought, ‘If I’m going to sing, I’m going to sing in front of as many people as I can, and I’ll do it my way.’ And when it came to playing roles, I knew that I wanted to play a whole gamut of different people. What I’m interested in when it comes to screen or stage is whether or not I have met this person before. If I have met this person before or have played this person before, I’m not interested in doing it again.”
The credits to Cynthia’s name are extraordinary, but even more so when you think about what they represent. It’s unthinkable, for instance, that it took until 2019 for a movie to be made about Harriet Tubman, one the world’s greatest social activists who, born into slavery, made 13 missions to rescue 70 slaves. In Cynthia’s hands, her power was finally brought to the screen. That spirit of perseverance to tackle diversity sees Cynthia, in each role she undertakes, push the pre-determined and outdated boundaries of representation. She allows more and more people to feel seen on stage and on screen.
But that doesn’t mean blindly saying ‘yes’ to every opportunity. “There were scripts that were coming after Harriet that felt very much like Harriet, and I just kept saying no. I think ‘No’ has really helped me in feeling confident enough to know that I have more to offer than what you’ve already seen. That has given me the confidence to find those spaces.”
Finding spaces to be her authentic self has never been more important to Cynthia, having come out as bisexual this year. Coming out is difficult at the best of times, but doing it in the public eye takes real bravery. Does Cynthia feel more empowered in herself now? “I’m really proud that I’ve come out. I feel more myself than I ever have; it’s like a shear has been lifted from my person,” Cynthia responds, flashing her infectious smile.
“It feels really good. It feels really good to just be, ‘This is who I am!’ That extra layer of freedom allows me to put energy where it’s meant to be. I can truly be my most creative self, my most free self, because I’m not really holding on to anything. Nothing else is taking energy because it needs to be hidden or concealed. I don’t need to do that, so I’ve got this extra burst of joy and energy.” This new level of public truth has given her more power to quieten her own self-critic and the voices of others, too. “I just don’t take things that personally any more, because I refuse to give away the joy that this has given me.”
Self-belief hasn’t been an easy journey for Cynthia, though. “It took me some time to really hone in on who I am, what I have to offer the universe and to feel confident in that,” Cynthia reveals. “Once I found it, I felt fiercely protective of it because there’s only one me, just like there’s only one anyone else. I get this sort of weird feeling if I’m not being honest or truthful about who I am. I’ve learned not to be anything but me. Sometimes it’s to my detriment and I’m OK with that. I never feel like I’ve compromised myself for something.”
Whilst coming out has been revelatory for Cynthia, her proudest moment came before this. “I was really proud of myself for getting on the plane to New York to do The Color Purple, really proud of myself because it was really scary. I had no idea what I was stepping into. I’d never done Broadway before. I was going by myself. I didn’t know what I would do or how it would turn out. I’m also really proud of the decisions I’ve made within this industry about the work that I do,” Cynthia continues before showing exactly why her body of work is so impressive. “I feel like it’s a multi-layered colourful book of different people that any young girl can look at and go, ‘She’s done all these things, so I guess I could do those things, too!’ Then there’s silly things, like when I paid off my mum’s mortgage and that made me feel really proud to be able to give something back.”
I wonder, given those personal moments of achievement, do accolades really matter for Cynthia? And how badly does she want the Oscar to become an EGOT? “I always hate it when people are like, ‘They’re not important.’ I think for a Black actress, they can be really important. They shift the way people see you in the industry, but there’s also just the young girl in you who used to watch all of these award shows and see everyone go up, get their award and make their speech. But it can’t be the be-all and end-all. It can’t be the only reason you’re doing it, because if it’s the only reason you’re doing it, once you get it, then what? As for the Oscar, I mean, it would be beautiful, wonderful, to win an Oscar. But I hope that I get it one day for really good work. And then I hope that more good work comes and not all of it will be Oscar-worthy. Some of it will just be for my heart and for how I feel.”
That is the secret to Cynthia Erivo’s talent: the ability to hit you in your heart with her portrayals is what makes her outstanding.
As one of life’s great performers and lovers of life (and its many challenges), what would that little girl in the nativity play with the tea towel on top of her head doing that best rendition of Silent Night say to Cynthia, the gamechanging performer she is today? “She might giggle a lot, because she was five, and I think she might ask, ‘Is that you? Is that you as well?’ She might be in a little bit of disbelief and then I would explain to her that she made some really good decisions and she’s landed in a place where she’s happy – really happy. I would give her a high five and I would tell her to not change anything: to keep going, keep being curious, keep asking questions and keep being cheeky. And I’d say ‘Thank you’ to her, because she’s the reason I’m here.”
We all have five-year-old Cynthia Erivo to thank for one of the greatest performers of our time.
Pinocchio is available on Disney+ now, and you can see Cynthia starring in the upcoming Netflix film Luther in 2023.
