Cynthia Erivo won a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy before she had ever been nominated for an Oscar. She is one award away from the rare EGOT.
The British actress and singer, whose parents are Nigerian, won all three for work connected to The Color Purple, the Broadway revival in which she played Celie. She has since been nominated for Academy Awards for playing Harriet Tubman in Harriet and Elphaba in Wicked.
From south London
Erivo was born in 1987 in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Stockwell, south London, by her mother. She studied music psychology at the University of East London before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Her early career was on stage in Britain, where she built a reputation for her powerful voice. She first played Celie in a production of The Color Purple at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London, and the production moved to Broadway in 2015.
The Color Purple
On Broadway, Erivo’s performance as Celie, a young Black woman in the American South who survives abuse and finds her voice, was widely praised. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2016. A performance from the show on a daytime television programme won her a Daytime Emmy, and the cast album won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
Harriet
In 2019 she starred as Harriet Tubman, the escaped slave who led others to freedom on the Underground Railroad, in the film Harriet. She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress and for Best Original Song for “Stand Up”, which she co-wrote. The casting of a British actress as an American icon drew some criticism at the time, which Erivo addressed publicly.
Wicked
Erivo reached her biggest audience yet as Elphaba, the green-skinned witch, in the film adaptation of the musical Wicked (2024), opposite Ariana Grande as Glinda. Her performance, including her rendition of “Defying Gravity”, earned her another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and the film became a global box office hit. The second part, Wicked: For Good, followed in 2025.
Beyond acting
Erivo has released music, written a children’s book and spoken openly about her identity and her faith. She has talked about her Nigerian heritage and her mother’s influence on her discipline and work ethic.
The missing award
Only a small group of performers have won all four major American entertainment awards: Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. Erivo holds three, and she is still in her thirties.
Her Tony came from playing a woman who learns to speak up. Her Oscar nominations came from playing two women who refused to stay quiet.
