HOW CYNTHIA ERIVO FOUND HER VOICE

The Nigerian-British actor conquered the stage in The Color Purple, stole scenes in Widows, and is ready to soar on screen as Harriet Tubman in an eagerly awaited biopic.

- Yohana Desta

We’re 52 minutes into lunch when Cynthia Erivo remembers she has to call someone to sing them “Happy Birthday.” ‘I’m the singing friend,’ she explains – a mildly amusing declaration because, well, have you heard Erivo’s voice? It’s a soft, clear soprano that can stretch until it’s a hundred feet tall, even though it belongs to a five-foot-one-inch woman whose own friends occasionally mistake her for a child. It is as if silk had a sound.

Erivo, 33, formally honed her gift at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; after graduating, she landed a starring role in the London production of The Color Purple in 2013. She stuck with the production for its Broadway revival, collecting a Tony, Emmy, and Grammy along the way. In other words, unless Erivo is only friends with Beyoncé clones, there’s no way she couldn’t be the singing friend.

‘I’m careful about how I use it; my voice has given me so much over the years’ she continues, speaking a hair above a whisper – but not actually whispering, because that can harm the larynx and Erivo would never do that.

Erivo’s career has come to a boil in recent years. After landing supporting work in the noir Bad Times at the El Royale and opposite Viola Davis in Steve McQueen’s Widows, she’s moved into lead roles in the upcoming HBO series The Outsider and a sweeping Harriet Tubman biopic, Harriet.