Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most highly awaited films of the year, with each fresh video clip of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and poster of Helena Bonham Carter's nightmarish Red Queen sending fans into ecstasies. No one is more surprised by these tasters than the film's star, Mia Wasikowska, who plays the 19-year-old Alice on a return trip to Wonderland. "I see these posters and dolls at the same time as everybody else, which is kind of bizarre," she says. "It feels really weird seeing me on a movie poster."
Her bemusement is understandable – Wasikowska is pretty new to being a film star. The 20-year-old Australian spent her childhood in Canberra with her brother, sister and parents (who are both photographers and artists – her surname comes courtesy of her Polish-born mother). She says that until five years ago she knew nothing about the film industry. "I was at dance school doing about 35 hours practice a week until I was 14. Then ballet started to grate – the whole idea of trying to attain perfection started to ruin the experience, so I decided to try another type of performance."
She signed with a Sydney agent and parts in Australian TV and film soon followed. Her first job in America was a stunning turn as a suicidal gymnast on TV pyschoanalysis drama In Treatment (shown on Sky Arts in the UK last year). Film roles as a strong-willed Jewish girl in Second World War thriller Defiance (2008) and as pioneer aviator Elinor Smith in the Amelia Earhart biopic with Hilary Swank came next. "I'm really happy with the roles I played," says Wasikowska. "I never identified with teen films – they pigeonhole the teenage experience – but I felt a connection with the young women that I've played. I've been honoured to portray such intelligent and sophisticated roles."
And will her Alice be just as complex? "There's a certain amount of anxiety that comes with playing a character so beloved by so many people," she admits. But Wasikowska worked hard with Burton to make sure Alice felt like their own. She is, of course, a huge fan of the director's work, particularly The Corpse Bride and Ed Wood: "All of his films are so beautiful, works of art in their own right."
Wasikowska has a couple of plum roles lined up after that, enough to see her included on the annual Vanity Fair young Hollywood talent cover this month, alongside Kristen Stewart and Carey Mulligan. Playing Jane Eyre to Michael Fassbender's Rochester looms on the horizon and she's just finished shooting director Gus Van Sant's latest (and as yet untitled) film with Henry Hopper, Dennis's son, and Sissy Spacek's daughter, Schuyler Fisk. "Van Sant is fantastic. I felt so liberated on set because I was encouraged to act like a young person He wanted me to have fun and be myself; it felt like I was in college."
Wasikowska seems a little forlorn when she explains how her sudden Hollywood success has meant she's seen little of Canberra of late. "It was harder when I was younger, being in a position where I had to be independent at a time when you very much want to be with your family." But she sounds a little like Alice when she adds: "But whenever I'm not working I go straight home – back to reality."
