Cynthia Erivo Said Her Real-Life Relationship With Her Father Is Very Similar to Elphaba’s 

Cynthia Erivo received an Oscar nomination for her role as Elphaba in Wicked. This month, she returns to the character in Wicked: For Good, the second installment in the adaptation of the musical. Erivo said she did work to build a connection with her character. Still, there were some parts of Elphaba’s story that Erivo couldn’t help but link to her own life. She said that Elphaba’s relationship with her father reminded her of her own life.

Cynthia Erivo said her relationship with her father reminds her of Elphaba’s

For Erivo, Wicked has been a very personal journey. The actor has been estranged from her father since an argument over a transit pass when she was a teenager. He was never a permanent fixture in her life, but he paid for her transit until their final argument. After some back-and-forth, he told a teenage Erivo that he would continue to pay, but he didn’t want to see her again.

She said she feels an affinity with Elphaba, whose biological father is the Wizard of Oz and has a complicated relationship with the man she presumed was her biological father. 

“There were so many sort of real parallels — the relationship with her father, the relationship to being in spaces that don’t really include you,” she told NPR. “The feelings you see in the movie are very real feelings.”

Erivo shared how she feels about her father now.

“I think I’m in a real place of acceptance, and a strange apathy as well,” she said. “I don’t wish him harm, but it’s not like I’m waiting for some grand resolution. I’m sort of OK with it being exactly what it is. I have no desire to start a relationship. I have no desire to mend a relationship. But it doesn’t really occupy my thoughts.”

Wicked: For Good hits theaters on Nov. 21.