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.
How a TV event pays respect to the ‘Genius’ of Aretha Franklin
nypost.comAretha Franklin, died in 2018, she had already anointed who should immortalize her on screen: Jennifer Hudson, who will star in the biopic “Respect,” due in August.But it’s Tony-winning actress Cynthia Erivo (“The Color Purple”) who first brings Franklin back to life in “Genius: Aretha,” the third installment in the National Geographic anthology series following previous seasons on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.
The eight-episode series, which premiered Sunday, will air through Wednesday. (There are two episodes per night, at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., which are available on Hulu the next day.)And let’s face it: There can never be enough propers for Aretha.It’s a tall task for anyone to play such a towering figure — even Erivo, who already.
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