BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Cynthia Erivo carries British hopes to the Golden Globes

Cynthia Erivo has become a force in Hollywood. She once described herself to me as ‘this little black girl from South London who wants a big career’.

On Sunday, Ms Erivo is in the running for two Golden Globe awards. She’s nominated for her sublime portrayal of freedom fighter Harriet Tubman in the film Harriet. And she and Joshuah Brian Campbell are up for best original song, for Stand Up (the pair co-wrote the music and lyrics), which Erivo performed in the film.

The 32-year-old, who was born in Lambeth and raised by her mother, a healthcare executive, finds herself in formidable company.

Renee Zellweger is the front-runner for her incredible study of Judy Garland in Judy. But there’s also Scarlett Johansson — so good in the tale of love and divorce that is Marriage Story; Saoirse Ronan, for her marvellous turn as Jo March in the excellent new version of Little Women; and Charlize Theron, who gives a powerhouse performance in Bombshell.

Harriet Tubman rescued slaves from plantations. And Erivo told me people have waited ‘too long’ to celebrate an American hero ‘who happened to be black’. ‘We’ve only just started putting women in the picture, with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel,’ she said.

‘Now we have Harriet — who has been there for 165 years! And she was for real and not based on a comic.’

Erivo won a Tony award for her performance in the musical The Color Purple. She lives in the U.S. and hasn’t stopped working since moving there.

Later this month she’ll be seen in the HBO supernatural thriller The Outsider, based on Stephen King’s dark mystery novel about the murder of a young boy. She plays private investigator Holly Gibney. Fans of King’s tales will know Gibney from the Mr Mercedes series of books.

The actress portrays Aretha Franklin in the National Geographic Genius TV series out later in the year. She also appears with Daisy Ridley and David Oyelowo in director Doug Liman’s dystopian big-screen picture Chaos Walking.

The nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which administers the Golden Globes (plus another, from the Screen Actors Guild), are seen as predictors for an Oscar nod.

The stylish star told me: ‘I’m doing all right! I think I’m just enjoying this here and now.’

Dafoe’s darkest days on The Lighthouse

Willem Dafoe gave up eating lobster while filming the atmospheric gem The Lighthouse.

The shoot was tough and left Dafoe and his fellow star Robert Pattinson battered and bruised.

The pair play lighthouse keepers who share a gruelling, lonely job: keeping watch on an isolated spot along the coast of Maine, circa 1890. It’s a gorgeously shot film, all monochrome shades, directed by Robert Eggers.

Dafoe’s veteran keeper Thomas Wake is lumbered with Pattinson’s sullen apprentice Thomas Howard. Wake’s in charge of provisions and preparing meals. ‘Ya not fond of ma lobster?’ Dafoe, his face looking as tough as the blasted landscape, asks, when his supper is harshly rejected.

The film was actually shot on the edge of a peninsula in Nova Scotia. Dafoe shacked up in a fisherman’s hut nearby, fending for himself. His family once kept a house in Maine, and he enjoyed tucking into lobster. ‘I knew about massaging a lobster,’ he told me (a technique for putting the crustacean to sleep before boiling it). ‘And how to prepare it.

‘But this time, up in Nova Scotia, it bothered me. That lobster was speaking to me. So one day, I just stopped eating lobster, on that shoot. Haven’t eaten one since. I cooked up pasta, rice and vegetable dishes,’ the Oscar-nominated actor said. 

He and Pattinson worked with a dialect coach who helped them make sense of director Egger’s ‘beautiful, crazy language’, which Dafoe said reminded him a bit of Robert Newton’s various piratical roles in Treasure Island and Blackbeard, The Pirate. ‘Very West Country nautical mixed with late 19th-century Maine,’ he noted. 

The two men were pitted against the elements, on screen and off. ‘The wind almost blew me into the water. The weather was harsh,’ Dafoe said. And then he fell back in his seat and laughed.

‘Actors love to brag about how hard their job is. But the truth is, nature was a character in this movie.’

If the rain and snow wasn’t getting them wet enough for the film maker’s purposes, both men would receive regular soakings from hoses. Often, the film’s underlying theme of toxic masculinity would bubble over into reality, as the actors tried to pretend they were fine with the rough goings-on, lest they appeared weak in front of the tough local crew.

He and Pattinson had very different styles of acting. ‘Because of Eggers’ language — I felt that I needed to explore it first through rehearsal,’ Dafoe said.

‘But Rob, besides having a different background, he’s a more reflective character. He didn’t want to do things in rehearsal that might flatten out when it came time to film. He just didn’t want to go there.

‘In retrospect, it worked out OK. He threw himself into it, just not necessarily into rehearsal.’

Dafoe said Pattinson is ‘driven’. ‘In person, he’s self-effacing and “aw shucks”. But he’s really hungry, and I appreciate that. I don’t think people know how driven he is to achieve excellence.’

High praise indeed from an actor who has been all about outstanding achievement for four decades.

The Lighthouse opens here on January 31.

Poignant echo of the past

The haunting song performed so beautifully by actor Jos Slovick in Sam Mendes’s great film 1917 sounds familiar because, well, it is.

Burl Ives, Johnny Cash and Emmylou Harris have all done versions of the early 19th- century folk song I Am A Poor Wayfaring Stranger.

Mendes told me he asked Slovick to sing it ‘unadorned’. He said ‘I wanted it done very plainly. The actors playing the soldiers were really mesmerised and wanted to cheer and applaud but I said that wouldn’t be such a good idea, as you’re all about to go over the trenches.’

The Golden Globe Award nominated film goes on general release here next Friday.