From Spring Issue 57
Award-winning actor and singer Cynthia Erivo speaks to Glass about her transition from stage to screen and her latest project Drift that sees her go from actor to producer
IT TOOK Cynthia Erivo approximately five years to discover her voice – though her mother would argue it was only two. As a child, her memories are decorated with the voices of Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, traditional Nigerian music and the charting songs from London’s local radio stations.
Music, it seems, has always been an inherent part of her existence with no memory lacking in a soundtrack. Singing along to the eclectic homemade mixtapes was just a habit rather than a statement, building up her understanding of the world in the backseat of her parent’s car.
“It wasn’t foreign to sing as we were always singing along,” she recalls. “I got asked to sing Silent Night at a Nativity play, and I was probably just the least shy kid. I just remember loving how it felt to sing that song. I loved the response I got and I didn’t know it was because I was good, but I did know they were happy. You put two and two together and you think, ‘I want to keep doing this because I think people like this thing, and I enjoy this thing’.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
Fast forward to today and Erivo, 37, has taken that ‘thing’ to levels few have ever achieved. You can’t Google her name or read an article without the term EGOT popping up as she is within arms’ reach of being welcomed into the exclusive club of those who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. What’s missing from her trophy cabinet is the prestigious Oscar. “It does play on my mind,” she admits when I ask her about the coveted title. “But it’s not the thing I’m necessarily chasing.”
While the accolades are a testament to the scale of Evrio’s ability, her journey to this very point is ridden with tales of doubt that began after she left school. Choosing to venture down the same academic route as her peers, the teenager picked music psychology to study at university. “I wanted to try to put the creative into science,” she says, explaining the decision.
Photographer: Shane McCauley
“I just found myself moving further and further away from what I love and getting bored of what I was doing, because I wasn’t stimulating that part of me that was meant to be taking care of my passion. I don’t know, I just doubted that I would be able to do the thing that I love the most, so I found myself trying to find whatever would allow me to get as close to it as possible.”
But it wasn’t close enough. “If there’s one thing about me it is that I’m very clear on what I do and do not want to do. And it was abundantly clear that this is not what I wanted, so I left.” With no plan and an understanding that life without a stage was non-negotiable, Erivo headed to work at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Here, she polished her craft while, in the true manner of a struggling artist, doing the odd jobs around the establishment – the bar, the box office and as an assistant to “earn a little living for myself”.
Amid the cleaning, pouring and perfecting, an advert appeared in the theatre foyer for a young actors company. Her questions of ‘what’s next?’ seemed to be answered by this opportunity until she bumped into director Rae McKen on her way to sign herself up.
“She wouldn’t let me do the programme,” recalls Cynthia, struck by such an intervention. “She told me to go to RADA. I was, like, that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts when I haven’t had any real actual training up until this point. I’m not going to get in, so why would I do that?.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
McKen was adamant – “If you don’t apply, you can’t come and do this”. At every opportunity, the theatre director worked with the aspiring actress on her audition, practising speeches and training her across all pillars of emotions. “I couldn’t believe it. I got in.”
It took Erivo precisely under two years after leaving drama school before she got that career-turning moment. While on stage at the Gielgud Theatre as Madeline in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a casting director spotted her and asked her to audition for Sister Act. “I got the role.”
Redefining herself as the show’s protagonist, Deloris Van Cartier, otherwise known as Sister Mary Clarence, Erivo took the show across the UK offering her a feeling she hadn’t felt like she had grasped before: “It felt like this is my job, this is what I’m doing. And then obviously The Colour Purple came around and everything sort of changed.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
Don’t mistake the nonchalance of the latter claim. In 2013, off the back of bringing Sister Act to Broadway, Erivo auditioned for the London production of The Colour Purple. Opening on July 17 and running for just under three months, her role of Celie was met with a reaction most can only dream of. In 2015, its producers wanted to return the show to America and bring with it Erivo. Months after the show opened at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, alchemising the start of a career in Hollywood.
“I don’t think I knew that it was possible,” she says reflectively. “I knew it was something that I wanted but you can only see in front of you, and that was being on stage in Broadway – even that was not a dream that I knew I could achieve. I just didn’t know that was possible, it was a far-away concept that I didn’t imagine would happen. So, when you’re on Broadway and someone says, ‘Hey, by the way we are going to put you up for a couple of movies’, you don’t think anything is going to land.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
By now, you know there is a pattern. Erivo began to land film roles in 2018. In 2019, her performance in the film Harriet, where she plays the titular role of Harriet Tubman, led her to gain two Academy Award Nominations including Best Actress. Where most have a liminal period of transition, the Londoner had to immediately step on to the set. But it’s her latest project, Drift that marks a shift in duality as she gains the credit of producer alongside lead.
Based on Alexander Maksik’s novel, A Marker to Measure Drift, the film is centred around a Liberian refugee named Jacqueline – played by Erivo – who is finding her feet on a Greek island, attempting to survive every day when she becomes friends with Callie (Alia Shawkat), an American tour guide. Fluctuating between her struggling present and her turbulent past, the film unfolds, presenting a narrative that touches upon broken regimes and the brutal realities of what it means to flee one’s country.
“I fell in love with the script because I just have never seen this subject matter handled in this way. There was just something about the way Jacqueline was written, there is such grace, elegance and quiet dignity for someone in this situation,” she replies, explaining what drew her to this project. “I really wanted to meet this person, like I wanted to know who she was. I wanted to find out what made her tick.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
Originally down to be directed by Bill Paxton in 2016, Erivo waited for the call sheet that never came. “I needed to get it made,” she continues. “I knew that I had the power to be able to reach out and do that. So, I did.” Herself and business partner Solome Williams brought their production company, Edith’s Daughter, on board to co-produce the project with Anthony Chen as its director.
“We are black women and if the subject matter is a black woman, it is probably a good idea to have someone behind the camera who understands that experience,” she explains. “We could make sure that this would speak to the experience and make sure that things are as accurate as possible.”
Taking a more hands-on approach, she diligently moulded her character, handpicking every small detail to ensure her portrayal would imbue the collective weight of the various hardships. “I was in all the decision-making about my character. I got to choose the costume she was wearing at different stages, the development of what that looked like. When she was in Liberia, when she was in London, how that shifted, and changed to what she would eventually wear in Greece.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
For Erivo, this is the backbone of her transformation into a role – down to the manicure that changes from square French tips to bare, bitten rough fingernails. “I want to know what kind of shoes they’re walking in, what it feels like to be that person. I wanted to know all those details.”
While these visual hints are necessary, Erivo’s metamorphosis runs deeper. Sonically she needs to be engaged too. “I use music as a trigger,” she says. “Running is really good for processing, so I go on long runs and listen to playlists.” It was on one of these morning runs that she stumbled upon Laura Mvula’s track, Father, Father. “I fell in love with how she was writing, fell in love with how she produced it. The space in the song. I knew that I wanted space in whatever we were going to do.”
Needing an opening song for Drift, Erivo reached out to the British musician to ask whether she would be a part of the process. The result is It Would Be, an original song written and performed by the pair. “It was a real collaboration from the both of us wanting to speak on the ethereal experience that this character might be having, and not necessarily the grounded in reality version.”
Photographer: Shane McCauley
Music, no matter whether it’s stage, set or sitting room, is the inescapable thread in Erivo’s craft. Both a tool and an innate instrument, her affinity to this power of storytelling is evident. “Music gives me quicker and easier access to whatever emotionally I need. Music has this power to crack a person open, to make them really vulnerable immediately,” she replies. “That’s maybe what acting doesn’t give me, but I use what I get from music to be a better actor.”
With an upcoming role as Elphaba in the highly-anticipated Wicked franchise later this year, the actor is about to toil with the idea of EGOT once again. But before we depart, I ask her what’s next. “I pick projects because I love the characters and I love the story. I want to tell good stories,” she says. “If that’s the sort of extra gift that comes along with it, then I mean wonderful. But I hope if it does happen, all it means is that I can do more good things.”
by Imogen Clark
Photographer: Shane McCauley
Stylist: Jason Bolden
Make up: Joanna Simkin
Styling assistant: John Mumblo
Talent: Cynthia Erivo
All clothing and accessories LOUIS VUITTON Spring Summer 2024