Cynthia Erivo knows when to say “yes” and “no” to roles, and she hopes her new film will cause a debate about how the word “no” is received in human relationships and society.
That was one of the takeaways from the star’s jam-packed Monday Screen Talk during the 70th edition of the BFI London Film Festival (LFF), which runs through Oct. 18.
In a wide-ranging chat, the Emmy, Tony and two-time Grammy winner and three-time Academy Award nominee discussed her career, including her latest film, Prima Facie, in which she plays a lawyer who becomes a rape victim. Erivo previously told THR that the work on the film would make her “feel sick and angry.”
The star hopes that the film can help start a debate about “preconceived notions about how Black women particularly experience pain” and consent more generally, along with how we hear and accept a “no” in a broader sense. “We expect more violence for her to feel the pain. We expect her to be more in pain than we see,” Erivo shared. “And hopefully, when people watch this movie, you will understand that it’s a violent act.”
She also said: “Consent is sometimes hard for all of us to comprehend. That it’s a big complex thing that is more to do with the way we receive ‘no’ than the way we see a ‘yes.’ Now we can have a conversation about that more than about the rape. It really is about the consent and the way her lack of consent is received.”
During her appearance, Erivo also lauded the intimacy coordinator and her co-star Daniel Ings. About Ings she said that he, “from the beginning, was very, very kind and immediately wanted to have a conversation about how we could be protective of one another and how we could be helpful in those places, at those moments, so that we could go as far as we needed to go, and then come back again.”
And she argued: “I think not enough credit is given to intimacy coordinators. They’re often given a hard time for the work that they have to do on the set. But the work that they do is really important, and it isn’t just about choreographing a scene, a sex scene, a love scene, romantic scene — it’s about sometimes having to not just choreograph these really hard, harrowing scenes but also making sure that everybody comes back to their bodies safely.”
Erivo on Monday also mentioned sharing a “no” quite regularly when she is offered roles, highlighting: “I feel like I have an internal metronome that tells me when something is right for me, and when something is not.” As a result, “I say no to a lot of things,” the actress explained.
When portraying real people, she said she is “playing these women who brought wonderful things into the world, probably because I care about these women very deeply, and I want the world to see them as they were — in all their complexity and all their greatness, and some of their failings, because they’re human. What I love about these women, I guess, is the deep humanity that each of them holds and carries.”
When Erivo was approached about Prima Facie, “I just knew immediately that I wanted to do this because I knew how important it was,” the star recalled. “I also I had this feeling that it was more important than I was even aware of, and I wanted to be part of it.”
With her production company, she is looking to tell complex stories with complex characters, including vehicles for great young actors. Erivo mentioned, for example; that she wants to find something interesting for Demi Singleton.
Questioned about her own mentors, she shared that Michelle Yeoh is among the great stars who are checking in with her and “looking out for me.” Erivo even recalled, to audience laughter, that Yeoh asked her in between Wicked scenes when she would direct for the first time. And she shared: “She asks me the question every time I see her.”