Simply More

Cynthia Erivo, a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award-winning actress and singer, opens her memoir by framing it as a book for anyone who has been told they are too much. Writing as she prepares to play Jesus in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl, a choice that has generated public controversy, she positions the backlash as proof of the book's central claim: She is often "simply more" than others expect or want.

Erivo structures the memoir around her running coach Julia Lucas's 10/10/10 rule for marathons: The first ten miles are run with the head (childhood), the second ten with the legs (early adulthood), and the final stretch with the heart (the rest of life).

Part One traces Erivo's childhood in South London. She grew up with her Nigerian immigrant mother and her sister in a maisonette, a small flat in a converted church, surrounded by neighbors who functioned as a chosen family. Her mother had fought her own parents to leave Nigeria for the UK, eventually becoming a health visitor, a community nurse focused on children's cognitive health. Because she had struggled for her own path, she never restricted her daughters' ambitions. When Erivo briefly stopped singing at 18 or 19, her mother said simply, "I just want to make sure you're still singing," words that still reverberate in Erivo's life. Her father was not equipped for fatherhood, and the burden of raising two children fell entirely on her mother.

Erivo traces the origins of her identity to singing, which her mother noted in her baby book as starting before age two. At about five, she sang "Silent Night" in a nativity play, and the audience's response left her feeling "sparkly on the inside." She was an endlessly curious child whose questioning sometimes got her into trouble. At about 12, her beloved English teacher, Miss Casey, told her to leave class for asking too many questions. That day, the word "too" entered her consciousness: too loud, too nosy, too curious. She later came to believe that the traits children are punished for are early signs of their greatest strengths.

When Erivo was 16, her father abandoned her at a London Underground station after an argument, telling her he did not want to be in their lives anymore. She walked away in tears and later saw him approaching on another platform. She held her breath, hoping for an apology. He passed without a word. It was the last day she ever spoke to him.

Throughout childhood, Erivo pursued performing. At about 11, she played the Queen in a musical version of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle, discovering that performers could create something from nothing. At 15, she won the role of Juliet at the Young Vic theater after auditioning unprepared. At her all-girls Catholic school, teachers nurtured her talent, and she discovered she has synesthesia, seeing music in color and feeling it physically in her body.

Erivo also recounts her gradual acceptance of her queerness. She knew around 15 that she was attracted to both men and women but lacked the vocabulary and did not date a woman until her late twenties. Telling her mother and sister proved difficult, as she feared rejection having already lost her father, but the family has recently begun having the hard conversations they once avoided.

After leaving university, where she studied music psychology but grew profoundly bored, Erivo took a job at the Stratford Theatre Royal in East London, working every position while watching every production. Through a Young Actors Company course, she reconnected with director Rae McKen, who insisted she apply to RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts). Erivo resisted, certain no Black girl from South London would be accepted, but she applied and was admitted.

RADA proved painful. Of 34 students, four were Black. Erivo faced microaggressions and was given the smallest roles after requesting time off for a gig that would have covered her entire tuition, a request denied while a white student received equivalent time off without question. One bright spot was her friendship with fellow student Michael Pivoy, a pianist. Together in a small room, they spent hours performing the entire score of Wicked, the musical about a misunderstood green-skinned woman named Elphaba. Erivo learned the songs and dialogue by heart years before she ever saw the show. In her final year, she was asked to sing other students' parts from backstage while they lip-synched onstage, an experience that crystallized her vow never to let her voice be taken from her again. She notes with irony that she is now the vice president of RADA.

Part Two corresponds to early adulthood. Erivo saw Wicked onstage for the first time on her 25th birthday but did not picture herself playing Elphaba, the outcast at the story's center, because she had never seen someone who looked like her in the role. Her breakthrough came with The Color Purple at London's Menier Chocolate Factory. The casting team initially refused to see her, apparently assuming a RADA-trained Black British woman could not connect to Celie, a poor African American woman in the rural South. Through persistent advocacy, she secured an audition with only two nights to prepare and won the role. A New York Times critic, Ben Brantley, saw the London production and wrote what Erivo described as a love letter, prompting producers to take the show to Broadway. Erivo left home at 26, not realizing she was beginning a new life. The show ran 14 months. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, along with an Emmy and a Grammy.

Success brought new challenges. Erivo developed anxiety about flying and realized it stemmed from the fact that each flight carried her further from home. Therapy at 29 uncovered the root of her compulsive need to prove herself: her father's abandonment. She went on to portray Harriet Tubman in the film Harriet and to play Aretha Franklin, earning Oscar and Emmy nominations that put her three-quarters of the way to an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) at 30.

When Erivo learned a Wicked film was in production, she told her team not to inform her unless the role was meant for her, wanting to protect herself from disappointment. She eventually auditioned, preparing for three weeks with athletic discipline. When director Jon Chu asked about her connection to Elphaba, she shared for the first time how she and Michael sang this music as an escape during her alienating years at RADA. Weeks later, at one a.m., Jon appeared on a video call and offered her the role. She broke down crying. It was almost exactly 10 years since she first saw Wicked live and 20 years since she first sang the music with Michael.

Part Three covers the final stretch. Erivo and her costar Ariana Grande sang together for the first time, unrehearsed, and discovered an astonishing harmonic blend. Before filming, the two made a pact to protect each other. Filming proved physically grueling: Flying on wires required Erivo to flip her own body, and the harness burned skin off her hips. With only 12 days of filming remaining, the writers' strike halted production for 148 days. Once recovered from illness after work resumed, Erivo finished the films with bone-deep satisfaction. She described this phase as learning to allow positive experiences to simply exist, to receive wonder rather than just push through obstacles.

In the closing chapters, Erivo reflects on faith, self-care, and freedom. Raised Roman Catholic, she has formed her own creed centered on loving-kindness. She formally releases her father from his paternal role, stating she has come to understand he was never meant to raise her. She addresses her queer community directly, invoking Toni Morrison's statement that "the function of freedom is to free someone else," and urges those who are out and proud to light the path for those still searching. She describes nightly rituals of journaling, making tea, and selecting matched pajama sets as acts of self-honoring, and closes by telling readers they have run a good race, given their all, and will have another chance tomorrow.