While in Los Angeles for Alice Through the Looking Glass premiere event, I had the opportunity to sit down with Mia Wasikowska, who plays Alice in the movie. This soft-spoken, yet powerful young actress was very insightful. And it made me love her, her character and Alice Through the Looking Glass even more. I think you will agree……
Photo Credit: Jana Seitzer/MerlotMommy.com
Australian-born Mia Wasikowska has had a brilliant career and she is only 26 years old. She has worked with industry greats – Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, Glenn Close, Helena Bonham-Carter, Julianne Moore and most recently, Sacha Baron Cohen in Alice Through the Looking Glass. She has been nominated for many different awards yet despite all the attention and accolades, her most comfortable spot is at her him in Sydney, Australia gardening or with a good book.
Photo Credit: Jana Seitzer/MerlotMommy.com
We had the chance to sit down with Wasikowska hours before the red carpet premiere of Alice Through the Looking Glass and we found her to be humble, appreciative, and quite comfortable in her own skin. We all leaned in a little closer to capture every words as what she had to say was profound and wise beyond her 26 years.
Here’s a little of our interview with Mia Wasikowska.
How did it feel stepping back into the role (of Alice) with the years that have gone by?
Ah, it was great. I really love Alice and I like seeing her journey. I think in the first film, she was kind of still a little uncomfortable and trying to bridge that gap between knowing who she is on the inside and then being able to be that on the outside. And I think that was sort of her journey in the first film. And then in this film she’s just spend two years as the captain of her own ship, and she has a really strong sense of who she is. And she comes back into this story with a really strong sense of that. Despite the fact that expectations of her are really low in her society, she manages to sort of hold on to that sense of being worth more than what people want of her, which I think is really great and important for young girls and boys, obviously, everywhere.
You have a lot of relationships with the other characters in the movie. Is there one that stood out more, that was your favorite?
I do like the relationship with Alice and Time. I think Sasha (Baron Cohen) plays a confident idiot very well. He’s this old powerful loser in a way and Alice is the only one that isn’t scared enough to pull him out on how he just doesn’t make any sense at all.
And then I also really like the scenes with the Hatter. When you’re filming a film like this and it’s green screen for five months, you spend a lot of time running around and jumping around. And so obviously the more enjoyable days was when it was those really lovely scenes between the two of us. That was really nice.
What was it like working with Johnny Depp this time around, and how was it different from the first time?
It was great. I guess the main difference was just that I knew him before and with all the cast I had that level of familiarity with them and that was really nice. So we all sort of knew each other and that always helps stepping into a project like this, which is quite abstract. He’s such a wonderful person, such a lovely, sensitive person and I love that he’s so creative. I mean, all his characters are very different, but they’re also distinctly his own characters.
We’ve heard a lot about how Sasha Baron Cohen is pretty funny as a person, pretty fun to work with. How was it for you to work with him?
Yeah, it was great. I mean, I think there’s like a six hour version of the film where he improvises a lot and he’s quite ambitious about it. I’m not sure how he thought half of that was going to get in a Disney movie. So, you know, it was just very entertaining. Every day was something completely different.
The movie has so many different themes to it, with family and friends and obviously not despising Time. What is the thing that resonated the most for you?
I did really like that it looks at the relationships between all the characters a lot, like Alice and her mother, and the Hatter and his father, and then it looks at the root of the rivalry between the sisters. You know your own relationship with your mom changes again and again as you grow older and you go through different stages in your life. Alice and her mom learn from each other and are able to really appreciate each other again. It’s really sweet.
There’s so many incredible quotes in Alice Through the Looking Glass. Is there one that resonated with you more than others?
There’s so many, but I do like the message of time, how you can’t change the past but you can learn from it. I think even though we kind of know that, I think really deeply understanding that is really important to being able to live your life and be in the moment, to accept what’s happened in the past move on into the future.
[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”curled” width=”auto” height=”” background_color=”#ffffff” border_width=”1″ border_color=”#dddddd” ]“Young lady, you can’t change the past, but I daresay, you can learn from it.” -Time in Alice Through the Looking Glass[/dropshadowbox]
Alice was such a great role model especially for girls & young women. Is there a particular message that you’d like for girls to take away from this movie?
Yeah, she seems to have this innate sense of who she is. Even though she’s got all these challenges and people always kind of questioning her, she manages to hold on to that really strong sense of herself – like when she goes to the ball with the oriental costume, she just doesn’t even seem to notice the judgment coming off of everybody else. Just that sense of not caring so much about what other people think is really important.
Photo Credit: Jana Seitzer/Merlotmommy.com
How does it feel to be a role model for young girls and young boys everywhere?
Yeah, it’s really great. I mean, it’s not something I ever considered until you’re doing a film and then you see that it has an impact on people. I’m excited for this film for all sorts of reasons, we’ve come a long way especially in terms of satirizing the idea of female hysteria, which only a hundred years ago was taken very seriously. It’s a big step and there’s obviously a long way to go before things are entirely equal, slowly it’s more normal that there’s a lead character in a big summer movie that’s a female and such a feisty one. She’s not a love interest. It’s just around being a friend and a loyal person and I think that’s really important.
What do you like to do when you’re not filming? How do you relax?
I still live in Sydney and so I spend a lot of time in my home. I love gardening and reading and being with friends. I live not too far from the ocean, so I like go for walks a lot – pretty boring, pretty simple existence.
Photo: Alex J. Berliner/ABImages
Wasikowska looked amazing later that night at the Alice Through the Looking Glass Red Carpet Premiere. She wore a black Alexander McQueen gown, which featured intricate crystal embellishments and sheer mesh panels throughout the bodice as well as crystals dotted throughout the skirt.
Alice Through the Looking Glass opens in theaters nationwide Friday, May 27, 2016
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Other Articles from the Alice Through the Looking Glass & Zootopia Blu-ray Event you may enjoy:
My Alice Through the Looking Glass Red Carpet Premiere Experience
Get to Know Alice’s Mia Wasikowski
5 Reasons Why Alice Through the Looking Glass is Better than Alice in Wonderland
Exclusive Interview with Suzanne Todd, Producer of Alice Through the Looking Glass
Zootopia’s Clark Spencer, Rich Moore, & Byron Howard
9 Things You Didn’t Know About Zootopia
Exclusive Interview with James Bobin, Director of Alice Through the Looking Glass
Disclaimer: Disney sent me to Los Angeles on an all-expenses paid press trip, in exchange for my coverage of the red carpet premiere of Alice Through the Looking Glass. All opinions are my own.
