{"id":644473,"date":"2026-10-12T21:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644473\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T21:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T21:12:11","slug":"cynthia-erivo-hopes-prima-facie-causes-debate-about-lack-of-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644473\/","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia Erivo Hopes \u2018Prima Facie\u2019 Causes Debate About Lack of Consent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCynthia Erivo<\/a> knows when to say \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d to roles, and she hopes her new film will cause a debate about how the word \u201cno\u201d is received in human relationships and society.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was one of the takeaways from the star\u2019s jam-packed Monday Screen Talk during the 70th edition<\/a> of the BFI London Film Festival<\/a> (LFF), which runs through Oct. 18.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a wide-ranging chat, the Emmy, Tony and two-time Grammy winner and three-time Academy Award nominee discussed her career, including her latest film, Prima Facie<\/a>, in which she plays a lawyer who becomes a rape victim. Erivo previously told THR<\/a> that the work on the film would make her \u201cfeel sick and angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe star hopes that the film can help start a debate about \u201cpreconceived notions about how Black women particularly experience pain\u201d and consent more generally, along with how we hear and accept a \u201cno\u201d in a broader sense. \u201cWe expect more violence for her to feel the pain. We expect her to be more in pain than we see,\u201d Erivo shared. \u201cAnd hopefully, when people watch this movie, you will understand that it\u2019s a violent act.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also said: \u201cConsent is sometimes hard for all of us to comprehend. That it\u2019s a big complex thing that is more to do with the way we receive \u2018no\u2019 than the way we see a \u2018yes.\u2019 Now we can have a conversation about that more than about the rape. It really is about the consent and the way her lack of consent is received.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring her appearance, Erivo also lauded the intimacy coordinator and her co-star Daniel Ings. About Ings she said that he, \u201cfrom the beginning, was very, very kind and immediately wanted to have a conversation about how we could be protective of one another and how we could be helpful in those places, at those moments, so that we could go as far as we needed to go, and then come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd she argued: \u201cI think not enough credit is given to intimacy coordinators. They\u2019re often given a hard time for the work that they have to do on the set. But the work that they do is really important, and it isn\u2019t just about choreographing a scene, a sex scene, a love scene, romantic scene \u2014 it\u2019s about sometimes having to not just choreograph these really hard, harrowing scenes but also making sure that everybody comes back to their bodies safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tErivo on Monday also mentioned sharing a \u201cno\u201d quite regularly when she is offered roles, highlighting: \u201cI feel like I have an internal metronome that tells me when something is right for me, and when something is not.\u201d As a result, \u201cI say no to a lot of things,\u201d the actress explained.<\/p>\n

When portraying real people, she said she is \u201cplaying these women who brought wonderful things into the world, probably because I care about these women very deeply, and I want the world to see them as they were \u2014 in all their complexity and all their greatness, and some of their failings, because they\u2019re human. What I love about these women, I guess, is the deep humanity that each of them holds and carries.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Erivo was approached about Prima Facie<\/a>, \u201cI just knew immediately that I wanted to do this because I knew how important it was,\u201d the star recalled. \u201cI also I had this feeling that it was more important than I was even aware of, and I wanted to be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her production company, she is looking to tell complex stories with complex characters, including vehicles for great young actors. Erivo mentioned, for example; that she wants to find something interesting for Demi Singleton.<\/p>\n

Questioned about her own mentors, she shared that Michelle Yeoh<\/a> is among the great stars who are checking in with her and \u201clooking out for me.\u201d Erivo even recalled, to audience laughter, that Yeoh asked her in between Wicked<\/a> scenes when she would direct for the first time. And she shared: \u201cShe asks me the question every time I see her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cynthia Erivo knows when to say \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d to roles, and she hopes her new film will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[51487,275647,458,26874,146,85,399,46,49766,247286,35616,69536],"class_list":["post-644473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-bfi-london-film-festival","tag-bfi-london-film-festival-2026","tag-celebrities","tag-cynthia-erivo","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-international","tag-israel","tag-michelle-yeoh","tag-prima-facie","tag-wicked","tag-wicked-for-good"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}