Ladies First Podcast with Laura Brown Episode 3: Cynthia Erivo On Joy and Presence

About Ladies First with Laura Brown

We love to honor women who show up and get the job done, so now we're going to talk about it — and to the ladies doing the work. Hosted by InStyle's editor in chief Laura Brown, Ladies First with Laura Brown will feature guests like Michelle Pfeiffer, Emily Ratajkowski, Cynthia Erivo, Naomi Watts, La La Anthony, Ellen Pompeo, Storm Reid, and more. One thing these ladies all have in common (other than being total badasses)? They're all trailblazers who were the first to accomplish something in their field — whether that be earning the highest salary for an actress on TV or landing the first cover of People's "Most Beautiful" issue.

Tune in every week to hear Brown and her special guests discuss current events, politics, some fashion, and, most importantly, the major firsts in their lives.

Cynthia Erivo On Joy and Presence: Episode 3: December 15, 2020

Terell Mullin

The incredible British actress and singer made her Broadway debut in The Color Purple—for which she won the Tony award for Best Actress in a Musical—five years ago and has since taken the world by storm. The star of Harriet is an Emmy, Grammy and Tony winner, just one Oscar shy from the coveted EGOT title. And she's well on her way as she's already a two-time Academy Award nominee. Cynthia Erivo is just getting started.

Erivo sat down with InStyle's Laura Brown to talk about her incredibly successful career that has taken off in such a short amount of time, as well as joy, upcoming projects, and when she realized she had a presence. And fashion of course. But aside from her quick rise to fame and incomparable talent, she's just like us. She likes to have fun, doesn't take anything she does too seriously, and she still gets very nervous before performing.

"I don't wanna get to a place where I'm like, 'Oh yeah, this is fine. I'll just go up and do this.' I don't ever want to feel like that because if I ever feel like that means I just don't care enough. That it doesn't matter that much to me. And every performance matters, even when I'm doing one song, it matters to me, like, even if it's the shortest song in the  world and it's like a two-second acapella situation, I get nervous, always. Always."

In the 35 minute episode, Brown and Erivo discussed another one of the star's relatable moments—Erivo going on Instagram Live while singing "I'm Every Woman" during a Peloton workout class. While it still sounded flawless to us, Erivo tells Brown it wasn't perfect, but she did it because she never takes anything she does too seriously.

"And then there's moments where I'm totally sweaty outside, running. It's the sixth mile, and I hate everything because everything hurts, and I'm going to share it with you. I think I'm trying to sort of, like, remove the guise of perfection so that people don't assume that it's perfect all the time. I'm on a bike singing, because you're going to hear me out of breath and I'm going to be sweaty and it's going to be kind of like, whatever note comes out, comes out. If it doesn't, it doesn't, and I'm not afraid of that."

Listen to the full episode and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. This episode of Ladies First with Laura Brown is sponsored by De Beers Group.