“Five personalities, 11 days—go,” says Cynthia Erivo. That was the mission that the Wicked star was given when she was cast in five different roles o
“Five personalities, 11 days—go,” says Cynthia Erivo. That was the mission that the Wicked star was given when she was cast in five different roles on the season two premiere of Natasha Lyonne’s Peacock series, Poker Face.
In the episode, titled “The Game Is a Foot,” Erivo plays not one, not two, but a grand total of five different sisters—Amber, Bebe, Cece, Delia, and Felicity, with the latter being a secret sister— former child stars who each went down wildly different paths. Years after their days starring on Kid Cop, Amber’s now a failed artist, Bebe a DJ, Cece a faux-French grad student, Delia an apple picker, and Felicity Price a successful artist living off the grid. Erivo had the gargantuan task of bringing each of these eccentric sisters to life.
“I wanted to figure out what it would be like to compartmentalize and play different characters all at once,” Erivo says. “To see how that felt, and to challenge myself to see if it was possible.”
Erivo began by focusing on each sister’s aesthetic reality, getting granular about their personal style. “Style-wise, hair-wise, and makeup-wise—what’s the journey they’ve been on?” Erivo remembers thinking.
To facilitate differentiate the sisters in her head, Erivo color-coded her script so that she knew who was speaking to whom. “The script looked insane,” she said. But even the color-coding didn’t make things that much easier. “You’re moving a mile a minute,” she says. “You’re going very, very fast, because you’re switching back and forth from characters throughout the whole entire day.”
Below, Erivo breaks down her specific approach to each of the five sisters, from their hair to their voice and everything in between.
Vanity Fair: How did you approach creating five distinct, nuanced characters who are also siblings?
Cynthia Erivo: I needed to know who each person was. As I read the script, they revealed themselves. One of them is sort of, like, over everything. One is a complete airhead and is in her own world. I knew that I wanted one to feel really grounded. And then our sweet Amber, who is totally unhinged but is trying to hold it together. Each one had a tic that was different to the other. Once I knew what it was, I could build from there.
The most helpful thing was finding out what they would wear—finding out what their personality was like within those costumes. The look, the hair, the makeup, all of those sorts of things keep people very, very specific. Underneath the base of it all is my face. So they would be similar, they would be twins, but they would each be very separate and individual.
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