Cynthia Erivo’s moment is here. The newly minted Oscar nominee from “Wicked” arrived at the Sundance Film Festival to receive a Visionary Award on Friday and the actress, who made a splash as Elphaba in the Jon Chu-directed adaptation of the beloved musical, is no stranger to the festival – she was a jury member during Sundance’s first virtual edition in 2021 and returned for “Drift,” a 2023 drama that she both starred in and produced.
And in speaking with TheWrap, Erivo said she’s ready for her moment. She noted she is “deliriously happy” about her Oscar nomination and is able to appreciate the acceptance she’s found more than if, say, it came when she first started making movies (in 2018 she debuted with the outstanding back-to-back releases of “Bad Times at the El Royale” and “Widows”).
“I feel like I’ve arrived in the way I’ve I meant to in this moment. I think I don’t think I would have been ready for it in the past. I think those were, like, really great building blocks to getting to this point,” Erivo said. “And I got the notoriety and the space and the time and the opportunities to do more with the other pieces, and this is a whole other ball game. But I think now I’m ready for it. Right when it’s meant to happen.”
“Wicked” was a watershed moment for Erivo, but there’s more where that came from. The actress said the forthcoming “Wicked: For Good” has a “completely different” vibe.
“I can’t wait for [audiences] to see how these two women have grown, because they’re different now,” Erivo said of the sequel. “You’ve seen flashes of what Glinda is like, but you haven’t seen anything of what Elphaba becomes. And I think that I’m really excited to see how people react to her growth and how different she is from when you meet her in in ‘Wicked: Part One.’”
Erivo’s moment has been long-simmering, and when TheWrap asked what role she would most like to revisit, she quickly said Holly Gibney, the private detective character created by Stephen King who she played in the HBO limited series “The Outsider.” King is just as obsessed with the character; since “The Outsider,” Gibney has appeared as the main character in a novella called “If It Bleeds” and a book called “Holly.” She’s also a main character in his forthcoming novel “Never Flinch.”
“I feel like she’s the one that got away. I really want to play her again,” said Erivo. She said that creator Richard Price sent her a proposed outline for a season 2, but HBO didn’t bite. As for why she wants to continue with the character, Erivo said, “Because she connected with the world completely differently to any of the other characters that I’ve ever played. She just was different. And this beautiful way of trying to connect with people, and knowing that she connects in a different way, but still making the effort to try. I just was totally endeared by it, but also this quiet confidence that she has, she knows she’s different. And the utter belief that things can be different, because she is different.”
As for her next mountain to scale? A feature adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s bestselling fantasy novel “Children of Blood and Bone,” which is being mounted by Paramount and director Gina Prince-Bythewood (“Love and Basketball,” “The Old Guard”). Erivo said of her character, “She’s nothing like anyone I’ve played. She’s a little less the hero.”
What makes “Children of Blood and Bone” so different from most fantasy novels is that it derives its influences from African culture, which was one of the main draws for Erivo.
“I’ve been obsessed with these books for a really long time, since they came out, and then I stalked the writer, and they’ve been talking to the writer for years at this point, and when I knew it was going to become a film, this is one where I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to be in this film, but I want to be in this film,” Erivo explained. “I feel like fantasy is one of those spaces that I’ve always loved, so to be able to do it in this way that pays homage to not only just African culture, but Nigerian culture specifically, and the folklore that surrounds it is really wonderful and to let people in on some of the beliefs and some of the ancient languages that that occurred. It’s really cool.”
Watch the full interview in the video above.
