Cynthia Erivo’s Stark New Film Is Already More Relevant Than She … – Vanity Fair

In her brief time as a movie star, Cynthia Erivo has already made a lot of big films. Before the SAG-AFTRA strike began, she was in production on Universals two-part blockbuster Wicked, now on pause. She got her first Oscar nomination for playing Harriet Tubman in the eponymous 2019 biopic from Kasi Lemmons. She first made her name in Hollywood as a scene-stealer in major studio projects like Widows and Bad Times at the El Royale. But now that the Broadway starbest known for her Tony-winning turn in *The Color Purple*has done all that, shes increasingly turning her attention to passion projects as she develops the cachet to help get them off the ground.

Enter Drift, a poignant, stark character study that marks Erivos screen debut as a producer and one of her most impressive screen performances to date. Set and shot in Greece, its an uncompromising indie that was not made under a SAG contract, permitting Erivo to promote the project. Following a strong Sundance premiere, its launching a scrappy awards campaign via distributor Utopia. (The film will have a qualifying 2023 release before breaking wide theatrically in January 2024.) Erivo plays a Liberian refugee processing her traumatic past as she tries building her new life in Greece; the movie stays close to her perspective, demanding of its star a quiet, warts-and-all portrayal. And thats in addition to both her active producing duties and her bonus contribution of the moving original song It Would Be, which closes the film. (Erivo was also Oscar-nominated for cowriting Stand Up, Harriets original song.)

As Drift inches closer to its release, the films individualized portrait of wars impact and the scars it leaves seems to resonate more by the day, particularly amid the rapidly intensifying Israel-Gaza conflict. For Erivo, the painful timing fits for a film that she hopes speaks authentically and humanely to the refugee experienceto the micro effects of macro conflicts. In pulling out one person, you get to understand that each person you look at isnt just experiencing the same thingthey are all going through their own separate experiences and pain and loss, Erivo says on this weeks Little Gold Men (listen below). Being able to focus on one person allows us to see the whole a little bit clearer.

Vanity Fair: How are you thinking about this movie right now?

Cynthia Erivo: When you do these things, you dont know how relevant theyll be or how much of an effect theyll make. I just knew that when I was making it, I read it and it was beautiful, and I desperately wanted to give voice to those people who wouldnt necessarily even be noticed. And with everything thats happening today, right now its really important for people to take a look at those who you might not realize are going through things that we could never even imagine. The fact that theyre still standing or even making an effort to move forward every day is a freaking miracle.

Given that current resonance, in the research of this character, what did you learn about that experience that was important to you to bring forward?

The thing that I really felt was important was to make sure that we didnt lose her humanity, we didnt lose the will that she had to live, and we didnt lose her dignity. My mother was an immigrant. She came over from Nigeria and she was also a part of the Biafran War. The thing that we dont get to see when these people are portrayed on film or TV is dignity. Yes, we see their circumstance, we see what theyre going through, we see how much they need, but we lose the fact that they still are people who want to present themselves in a certain way. The wonderful thing about Jacqueline is that she still wants to present. She still wants to be as together as she possibly can with whatever little that she has.

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Cynthia Erivo's Stark New Film Is Already More Relevant Than She ... - Vanity Fair