Cynthia Erivo

The 2015 Color Purple revival arrived on Broadway as a transfer from a converted chocolate factory in London, which tells you how much anticipation there wasn't. Erivo wasn't a star coming in, and Jennifer Hudson was in the cast. She played Celie anyway, and walked out with the Tony, a Grammy, and a Daytime Emmy. The industry went from not knowing her name to casting her as Harriet Tubman.

She has the T, the G, and the E. The O is the only thing standing between her and a completed EGOT, and she's been nominated twice, for Harriet in 2019 and Wicked in 2024. Harriet arrived with controversy: before it opened, old tweets surfaced where she appeared to mock Black Americans, and critics argued a British-Nigerian actress had no business playing the icon. She got the nomination anyway. Wicked was cleaner and hit wider, but the Academy found someone else again. She hosted the 2025 Tony Awards, released an album, filmed three movies back to back, and picked up an MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours. Whether the Oscar comes or not, she's accumulating at an unusual pace.

Her full legal name, Cynthia Chinasaokwu Onyedinmanasu Owezuke Amarachukwu Echimino Erivo, takes a full breath, and all five middle names are Igbo. She started a music psychology degree at the University of East London before switching to RADA. Her father told her he didn't want to be part of her life when she was 16. She became vice president of that drama school in 2024. The arc from abandoned teenager to institutional figurehead covers a lot of ground.