Cynthia Erivo opens up about shaving her head for ‘Wicked’

Cynthia Erivo had a candid conversation about shaving her head for her Oscar-nominated movie, Wicked, voluntarily and she revealed how she felt immediately after.

The 38-year-old actress and singer recalled looking in the mirror for the first time after she had just shaved her head, during the Canva Create event at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, on April 10th.

“I remember feeling so open and vulnerable when there was nothing there. I saw my face in the mirror with no hair at all. I thought I’d really like that. I like how open that is, I like how much of a black canvas it is, and I like that there's nothing but my eyes,” said Erivo, who plays Elphaba in the movie.

Erivo noted that since the big chop she has felt more “in my body, in myself.”

Reflecting on the transition with her hair, Erivo shared, “I had a lot of hair when I was younger. So when I went to drama school, something happened ... when we were graduating. I thought, ‘Oh, I want people to see my face,’ and at that point, I had a lot of hair, thick and long, and I thought, ‘I want to see what it’s like to have short hair.’”

The Harriet star went on to say that she wanted people to focus on her when she entered, “I knew I was leaving to go to auditions and walk into these rooms, and I just wanted to turn up as myself.”