INTERVIEW: "Alice" Spills Wonderland Secrets

As the Alice in Wonderland Blu-Ray and DVD is about to hit stores on June 1st, we reconnected with its pretty, 20-year-old, blonde star Mia Wasikowska to learn how she left her life as a ballet star to try acting, how she prepared to play such an iconic character and how she got the lead role in the amazing fantasy film when every young girl in showbiz wanted to star opposite Johnny Depp!

Mia says she doesn't feel a connection to most of the characters in teen-aimed films.. Check it out.

TeenHollywood: We hear you were very determined to land this role.  

Mia:  I sent an audition tape in February, 2008 and ended up in June or July coming over to Britain and doing four more auditions with (director) Tim (Burton) before I got the role.

TeenHollywood: Didn’t you fly back and forth from (your native) Australia to the UK thee times?

Mia:  Yeah, but I never really expected to get the role. Also you learn not to trust your feelings when you are in the strange period of auditions. It is all very up and down. You can audition, feel very confident and then not get the role. Then you can think the audition was the worst thing you ever did in your life and then you get the role. So you could analyze for weeks and months and it would still not make any sense.  

TeenHollywood: What do you think Tim Burton saw in you?

Mia:  I’m not sure. I feel really lucky to be chosen by him. I really love his films. Edward Scissorhands is a really special film for me. Tim has this compassion for characters who are outsiders and he presents them in a way that is not stereotypical.

TeenHollywood: Had Tim seen any of your work?

Mia: I’m not sure if he had seen In Treatment (a TV series on HBO). He might have.  I feel so lucky to have done In Treatment. It’s so rare to play a teenager who is so complex.

TeenHollywood: How did you go about getting the English accent for Alice?

Mia:  I had a lesson with a dialect coach and from then on it felt natural. When I take on a character with an accent then I can’t imagine them without that accent. Even when I was reading it in my head it was in an English accent. After a while it became natural. I didn’t listen to tapes. There is a lot of British film in Australia so we grew up listening to that and it wasn’t so hard to do the accent.

TeenHollywood: What was your research for Alice In Wonderland?

Mia: My research was reading the books and reading about the books and looking at Lewis Carroll’s photography and collecting images from any of the illustrators. So Alice in the books was the backbone of the character but we really wanted to explore Alice as an older person.

TeenHollywood: Are you just drawn to play damaged characters?

Mia:  I think so, for me they are really interesting characters. But I never felt a connection to the characters in teen movies. So I feel really lucky to have had the chance to portray characters who to me are more real and meaningful.

TeenHollywood: Tim Burton has said that you are an old soul. What does that mean to you?

Mia: There are a lot of different definitions of old soul. Alice has an awareness of what is going on around her and she is a deep feeling person. I did not grow up in movies or with an awareness of the celebrity culture. I grew up in a small city in Australia. My dad is a photographer and a collagist. We grew up in galleries and traveling around.

My parents showed us interesting films. I lived for a year in Poland when I was eight years old and that was a similar age to Alice when she first went to Wonderland. At that age when you are removed from your world and placed in a different one you can completely absorb it. That was a very interesting time for me to experience another culture. I used to speak a little Polish but not very well.

TeenHollywood: You started in ballet so how did you move to film?

Mia: I did dance very intensely for a number of years. From the age of eight to 14. Towards the end I was doing 35 hours a week. So I was always intensely into something. Before I decided to pursue acting, dance had become about trying to achieve physical perfection, which was so unattainable.

Then I was smaller and less comfortable with myself and less happy with my body because I was always being confronted with my imperfections. At that time I was watching films that inspired me because they were about people’s imperfections. So I became interested in that and that was more true to me.

TeenHollywood: What was the green screen experience like in making Alice In Wonderland? So many of the amazing creatures weren't really there in front of you.

Mia: It was very strange. You have to bring a lot more energy and focus to working. You don’t realize how lucky you are to have an environment where you can get some feeling or have an actor from whom to bounce off. When you are acting opposite a tennis ball you have no idea what the Cheshire Cat will actually be doing. It’s about trusting Tim.

TeenHollywood: So was it with a sense of wonder that you finally saw the film?

Mia: Definitely! It is being revealed to me in the same way that it has been revealed to everybody else. I had seen concept art but not the final thing and to see it together was wonderful.

TeenHollywood: How did you like the costumes for Alice?

Mia:  Even though Alice is from another time, she is very much like a modern character. If you were to put her in our society she would thrive. I feel she is a modern girl stuck in another time. I love the costumes. Every one of them was so detailed and beautiful.

TeenHollywood: How do you feel about becoming a new Disney icon?

Mia: I don’t know. I guess I have no choice.

TeenHollywood: You must like a challenge because after playing an iconic figure like Alice you are playing Jane Eyre?

Mia: That’s right. I have kind of started preparing. I have re-read the book and want to be knowledgeable about all things connected to Jane Eyre. (Note: the film is now in post-production).

TIM BURTON’S ALICE IN WONDERLAND is on BLU-RAY & DVD JUNE 1ST! Watch for our review!