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.
Ariana Grande Says ‘Evil’ Tabloids ‘Have Been Trying to Destroy Me Since I Was 19,’ Calls Out Backlash Over ‘Wicked’ Voice: ‘When a Male Actor’ Transforms, ‘It’s Acclaimed’
variety.comZack Sharf Digital News Director Ariana Grande joined her “Wicked” co-star Cynthia Erivo on the cover of Vanity Fair and fired back at critics of her speaking voice, which had a lighter and breathier register during and after the filming of the upcoming two-part Universal musical.
The Grammy winner stars in “Wicked” as Glinda the Good and spent nearly two years filming the project. “There is a part of the world that isn’t familiar with what it takes to transform your voice, whether it’s singing or taking on a different dialect for a role or doing a character voice for something,” Grande said in response to the internet often trolling her airier Glinda speaking voice. “When it’s a male actor that does it, it’s acclaimed,” she added. “There are definitely jokes that are made as well, but it’s always after being led with praise: ‘Oh, wow, he was so lost in the role.’ And that’s just a part of the job, really.
Tale as old as time being a woman in this industry. You are treated differently, and you are under a microscope in a way that some people aren’t.” Criticism of Grande’s speaking voice reached its peak over the summer when a clip of her slipping into different registers during an interview on Penn Badgley’s “Podcrushed” podcast went viral on social media.
The singer took to TikTok at the time to confront the mockery by writing: “I intentionally change my vocal placement (high/low) often depending on how much singing i’m doing,” she wrote. “I’ve always done this BYE.” “It’s something that I’m just really proud of,” Grande now told Vanity Fair about her voice. “Part of why I did want to engage [on TikTok] is because I am really proud of my hard work and of the fact that I did give 100% of myself, including my.
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