From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

It's The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. At this year's Sundance Film Festival, I was allowed my own conversation space.

The first of my talks was with an actor whose roles have included playing Aretha Franklin, Harriet Tubman, and, of course, her turn as Alphabet in the film version of Wicked.

Here's Cynthia Arrivo in what was the first interview she did after getting the Oscar nomination for Best Actress.

Cynthia, there's so much to talk to you about.

But first and foremost, I think, about these roles that you played about women, you let her see them find their joy.

Yeah.

And for me, that goes back to our first conversation with your Alberta Hunter.

Yeah. Talk to me about that process, about these women who are oppressed, who are fighting

institutions, but have an inner voice that guides them. Yeah. Talk to me about how this has been

such a throughline in your career.

Yeah, I think the thing I'm always looking for is the woman who is seeking something more

than she has.

And I guess there's maybe something in my spirit that wants to try and help to find out

what that is.

I think on the on the outlet outlet when you see a character immediately,

you sort of give a, there's like a judgment of who they are and what they are.

And often we see these characters as just oppressed or just going through terrible things,

but also no one is just one thing.

And I think that if you can find what pieces of light and pieces of joy are

in these characters, actually the fact that they are oppressed, the fact that they experience

that becomes more heartbreaking because you already know that in the joy and in the light,

...