Cynthia ervio.
Photo: Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images
There are two aspects of Cynthia Erivo’s life that are inarguably true. First, that she will have a long and healthy career on both stage and screen. Second, that she will be asked about Wicked for the duration of it. The actress and singer is just now processing her time making the megahit franchise films in her Variety cover story. “I haven’t had that much distance,” she said. “And I guess I’ve not necessarily looked back that much at it, because distance does make the heart grow fonder, you know?”
She was, however, able to share her perspective on the Wicked: For Good press tour. While she and co-star Ariana Grande were on the press tour in Singapore, a man lunged at Grande outside of a venue, and Erivo was seen physically pushing him away in a video. Some people online called Erivo Grande’s “bodyguard,” a title that Erivo opined on. “I think that we haven’t really come to terms with the insidious nature of how we view Black women,” Erivo said. “And I’m sure people will read this and think, Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s not about that. But it is.”
She felt like the physical descriptions of her were racialized. “That’s what was being made fun of. It was my physique; it was my shape; it was the fact that I was bald; it was about what I looked like,” Erivo said. “And because of that, there was this assumption that I was bigger than my co-star and so I had to be controlling or protecting, and that was my role. I would hazard a guess that it would not have been the same had it been the other way around.”
The horror of both the attack and the internet’s response to her protecting Grande held her back from fully Oscar campaigning. “I just felt like my humanity had been bastardized,” Erivo said. “I felt like something I did instinctively had been made to be something that it simply was not because of the way people see women who look like me, and because of the assumptions that are made, and I just didn’t want to be a part of that, really and truly. I didn’t want to put myself through it. I didn’t feel like I deserved it.” Ultimately, Wicked: For Good didn’t score any Oscar nominations. But, of course, the cultural fascination remains.
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