Cynthia Erivo Is Nominated for ‘Harriet’ at Oscars 2020

Getty Cynthia Erivo attends Alfre Woodard's 11th Annual Sistahs' Soirée Presented by Morgan Stanley With Absolut Elyx on February 05, 2020 in Los Angeles, California.

British actress Cynthia Erivo starred as Harriet Tubman in the biopic, which is titled Harriet. The 33-year-old actress is nominated for the 2020 Best Lead Actress Academy Award, and if she wins, she’ll be the youngest performer to enter the EGOT club, the group of entertainment artists who have won at least one Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award.

Erivo began acting when she was just 11 years old. She’d act in plays and appeared on reality TV. Later, she attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 2013, she hit her big break when she heard that The Color Purple would be premiering in London. She played Celie, a role held by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie version.

When it was announced that Erivo, who is from London, would be playing Harriet Tubman, some critics were upset. She didn’t let that get to her, though, instead, telling Deadline “I would rather tell this story well, do it justice, and hopefully some minds will change.”

Erivo is Nominated Alongside Award-Winning Actresses

The Best Leading Actress category is stacked this year. It includes Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story, Saoirse Ronan for Little Women, Charlize Theron for Bombshell, and Renée Zellweger for Judy. 

The award will almost certainly be presented to Zellweger, as she’s swept the award season so far.  Johansson is another actress to watch; she was the only actress nominated in both the Best Leading Actress category and the Best Supporting Actress category.

Erivo Is the Only Person of Color Nominated for an Oscar in Acting Categories This Year

The lack of diversity at the Academy Awards has sparked a lot of criticism, especially this year. Erivo told BBC after her nomination that she wants to make sure “it doesn’t look like this every single time.”

She said it was time for the film industry to move forward and take stock to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

“There are people who also deserve to be a part of this,” she said. “Hopefully this year will be a turning point for everyone because we’re talking about it out loud and now can start to make some changes. We can’t keep doing this and doing nothing about it so maybe now we start doing something.”

Erivo’s sentiments echo those shared by actor Joaquin Phoenix when he accepted his British Academy Film Award last week. She told Variety she was glad to see Phoenix use his platform to publicize the issue.

“It meant that someone like him was listening and seeing what is going on and has gotten to the point where he can’t pretend it’s not happening anymore…” she said. “AI think it was time for someone like him to say it, because people like me, the black girls of the world, the black men of the world, are saying it consistently, but we’re not always being heard. So maybe it might have taken that to change something.”

The issue has been in the spotlight since the 2015 and 2016 award season when #OscarsSoWhite began trending on Twitter after there were no nominees of color in the acting categories in two years.

There is also criticism for the lack of female representation in some Oscar categories, specifically in the Best Director category. Greta Gerwig, director of Little Women was passed over this year. Her nomination for Lady Bird in 2018 was the only for a female director in the past decade.

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