Cynthia Erivo wants to play Storm from “X-Men”: 'We haven't uncovered how grand she is'

After playing gravity-defying Elphaba in the blockbuster musical Wicked, Cynthia Erivo wants to next take flight as comic book superhero Storm.

The actress expressed her interest in playing the weather-manipulating "Wind Rider" of the X-Men team while at the National Board of Review Awards Gala in New York City this past Tuesday.

"I really want to play Storm," Erivo told a member of the organization when asked what role she would want to manifest next. "I know it sounds frivolous, but I think we haven't uncovered how grand she is and all of that inner turmoil that she has. So I think there's a world in which we could do something with that."

Related: Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, SAG nomination analysis, and more in EW's The Awardist digital magazine

The character, with the power to harness the weather, led many lives in Marvel comics, from a child street thief in Cairo to being worshipped as a goddess in Africa to serving as the Queen of Wakanda as the wife of Black Panther. Though she's one of the most powerful mutants in all of Marvel lore, Storm suffers from debilitating claustrophobia, having once been trapped under rubble as a kid with the bodies of her dying parents.

Halle Berry notably portrayed Storm, a.k.a. Ororo Munroe, in the X-Men movies, starting with the first film entry of 2000 and ending with 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past. Alexandra Shipp then took over the role in prequel films X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019). Since Disney purchased the rights to the characters, however, Storm and the X-Men are in the midst of a new era.

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X-Men '97, a sequel series to the beloved 1990s-era Saturday morning cartoon, premiered on Disney+ last year, with Alison Sealy-Smith returning to voice the hero. Sealy-Smith also voiced Storm when the character made her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in What If...? season 3. Disney has continued incorporating live-action X-Men characters in the MCU since Deadpool & Wolverine.

Related: Marvel teases X-Men plans: Secret Wars will launch 'new age of mutants' in MCU

"I think you'll see that continue into our next few movies and some X-Men players that you might recognize," Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige said at a Singapore event in November. "And then right after that, the whole story of Secret Wars really leads us into a new age of mutants and of the X-Men. And, again, one of these dreams come true that we finally have the X-Men back at Marvel Studios."

Dirty Computer singer and Knives Out: Glass Onion star Janelle Monáe is another celebrity who expressed interest in playing Storm in live-action over the years. "One of my dreams has always been to play Storm," Monáe told Empire in 2020. "I don't know if she comes in Black Panther, but it would be a dream to have her in it. I don't know where they are with that."

"A lot of women have played Storm and they've done an exceptional job," Monáe added, "and I would love to be in that line of artists and get to do Storm justice."

Erivo, meanwhile, is still riding high off the success of Wicked, which earned big bucks at the box office since its December debut, as well as lots of awards chatter. The hype will continue throughout 2025, which will see the arrival of Wicked: For Good, the second half of director Jon M. Chu's adaptation of the Broadway musical.

Along with her Glinda/Galinda costar Ariana Grande, Erivo is in a unique, in-demand position. To quote Madame Morrible, sky's the limit — with or without a Storm role.

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