When it came time to cast his latest blockbuster, Tim Burton found himself a group of major stars, quirky talents and at least one relative unknown. One could be expected, one was elated and another ... well, she wasn't exactly thrilled.
"There's a certain amount of pressure and a little amount of anxiety when it comes to Alice, because she's such an iconic character and so many people know her," explained 20-year-old Mia Wasikowska when we spoke to her recently, saying she was thrilled but nervous when Burton picked her out of relative obscurity to portray a teenage Alice in his 3-D take on Lewis Carroll's classic world. "Very early on, you know you are not going to please everyone. The most important thing was making the character my own."
Because Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" is actually a whole new tale involving an older Alice returning to "Underland," Wasikowska said the concept gave her more freedom than she might have had otherwise. "She's 19 in our story and she's in a different stage in her life to where she is in the storybooks. She's experiencing different things and I think she's relatable as a teenager. A lot of people would understand where she is at and what she is dealing with."
Then there's Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter — the actor's seventh collaboration with Burton during a 20-year partnership. "To be honest, when he called I didn't know what character he wanted me to be. For all I knew, I could have been Alice — which would have been fine also," Depp grinned.
"I was just prepared to do whatever he wanted, whatever character it was," said Depp, who insisted it isn't an automatic that he'll forever appear in every Burton movie from here on out, even though he has starred in the last four. "Each time out of the gate with Tim, you just try something a little different."
"Different" would seem to be the operative word, both in the worlds of Tim Burton and that of Wonderland — which might have been where Burton wanted to escape to after he presented fiancйe Helena Bonham Carter with a script containing the sweet, benevolent White Queen and her evil, freakish sister the Red Queen and asked the love of his life and mother of his children to play the latter.
"My agent, who is my really close friend, first read it," Bonham Carter remembered. "I said, 'He wants me to be in it. He wants me to play the Red Queen.' And she said, 'I'm hurt.'
"I said, 'Why are you hurt?' " she remembered of her conversation with the agent. " 'Because he wants you to play the Red Queen, and the White Queen is small, petite and beautiful!' The description of the Red Queen is small, with a huge oversized head and very angry ... but I really don't mind. It's fun to get a big head."
Check out everything we've got on "Alice In Wonderland."
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