QUOTE TO NOTE: ‘Wicked’ Star Cynthia Erivo Talks About Faith

Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, the young Wicked Witch of the West, in the movie “Wicked.”

In a Christian Post article, Cynthia Erivo, the star of the blockbuster movie, Wicked, revealed her ideas about faith.  Erivo, who identifies as queer and bisexual, also is a Catholic, and attended Catholic school as a child.  Her thoughts about faith follow very practical lines, eschewing Christians with “narrow thinking” who try to decide who has faith and who doesn’t:

“I have a deep belief that God makes people as they’re meant to be. The rules for themselves that people put upon others have nothing to do with me and my faith. I can’t allow narrow thinking that some Christians or Catholics have of what faith is to affect how vast I think faith can be. Faith is so big — so much bigger than set rules.

“As time changes, we are also meant to change. If me loving someone makes you upset, then we have to refocus. I think the main rule that we’re all supposed to follow is to love one another as you would love yourself. That’s it. That’s the big overarching thing. Am I making space to care for other people, be kind to other people, be as good to other people as I would have other people be to me? If those are the things I’m following, then I think I’m following my faith.”

[The quotation is originally from an interview Erivo gave to Elle magazine.]

Erivo, who has won Emmy, Tony, and Grammy Awards, as well as being a three-time (Oscar) nominee. (Two of those nominations were for Best Actress and Best Song for the movie Harriet, the life story of Harriet Tubman, an ex-enslaved person who rescused many others and who worked for abolition of slavery.)

The focus of the Christian Post article was on the fact that Erivo has been chosen to play the role of Jesus in a 2025 production of Jesus Christ Superstar, to be staged at the Hollywood Bowl, California. In 2020, she played the part of Mary Magdalene in an all-female production of the same show.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, February 26, 2025

For more of the gay Catholic background behind the story of  Wicked, read Bondings 2.0’s guest post by author, Gregory Maguire, entitled “On Elphaba and Growing Up a Gay Catholic: ‘Wicked’s’ Author Reflects.” Maguire wrote the book upon which the Broadway show and Hollywood film were based.