Q&A With 'Alice In Wonderlands' Anne Hathaway And Helena Bonham Carter
March 4th, 2010 10:16am EST
On Friday March 5th, audiences around the world will be falling down a cinematic rabbit hole and feeding their heads with the silver screen delights created by Hollywood’s own mad man. Tim Burton’s fantastically dark take on author Lewis Carroll’s most famous story, Alice in Wonderland, is more of a sequel where Alice returns to a world of nonsense. Tea parties are all the rage, caterpillars smoke hookah, and cats make meowing passé. The children’s tale is a perfect match for Burton, who has brought characters, such as Batman, Beetlejuice, and Edward Scissorhands to life, and was set on having the finest play his misunderstood characters. Alongside Mia Wasikowska as the film’s leading lady and longtime collaborator Johnny Depp, 27-year-old Anne Hathaway and Burton’s wife, 43-year-old Helena Bonham Carter star as strange sisters. While Hathaway’s “White Queen” is seemingly pure as her snow white gown, Carter’s “Red Queen” is a monstrous Elizabethan royal who’s willing to unleash her own reign of terror. In time for Walt Disney’s 3D flick, both Oscar nominated actresses sit down to talk about their bizarre roles, working alongside Burton, and the real life inspirations that made them ready for their journey to a surreal world.
Is Alice in Wonderland an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s book?
Helena Bonham Carter: It’s an original story, I’d say. I think this is what Tim has brought to it. We’ve got all the same characters as in the original story—but, genius as it was, it doesn’t actually have a story or plot to speak of. Alice goes from one episodic encounter to another, and meets madder and madder people. The other thing that’s profoundly different is that she’s 19, and she’s somebody who’s trying to work out who she is. I also think that the story resonates because, to a young child, everything’s incredibly confusing. I can see that with my son, Billy. As a parent, I’m constantly interpreting. You can see that he and Nell, who’s now a year old, are in a state of wonder. When I read the script it made so much sense to me. It was really lyrical and had great heart. And it has a story, so you really do want to know what’s going to happen next.
Why have Lewis Carroll’s books been enjoyed for generations?
Anne Hathaway: In my opinion, what makes a great book is something that is universally specific. I didn’t read the Alice books when I was a child. I read them when I was in college. I was really into Nabokov, and apparently, he was really into Lewis Carroll, so I thought it was a good idea. I read it from the perspective of a young woman becoming a woman—and I really related to it, the idea that you’re never the right size, that you could drink something to make you feel smaller, or eat something to make you feel bigger. I remember that it just appealed to me because I understood it. On the surface, it’s kind of light and fantastical, but it actually does play into a lot of deep, psychological fears we have—inadequacies, insecurities, the way we relate to the world around us. And in Wonderland, the world is hyper-emotional. It doesn’t make sense. Then, you have this young girl navigating her way through it. Sometimes, you feel like you’re the supporting cast of characters, the Wonderland crew, and then other times, you feel like you’re Alice. When something is that universally specific—universal enough that it’s just a great, entertaining story, but specific enough that you can find yourself in it and relate to it at different points in your life—I think that could possibly explain why people keep going back to it.
Describe the character you play.
Anne Hathaway: I play the White Queen. When I was trying to work her out, I kept saying to myself, ‘She is a punk-rock vegan pacifist.’ So I listened to a lot of Blondie, I watched a lot of Greta Garbo movies, and I looked at a lot of the artwork of Dan Flavin. There’s a little bit of Norma Desmond thrown in there, too. When I first came onboard the project, Tim talked a lot about the relationship between the sisters, and that really opened the character up to me a lot. She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen. She really likes the dark side, but she’s so scared of going too far into it that she’s made everything appear very light and happy. But she’s living in that place out of fear that she won’t be able to control herself.
Helena Bonham Carter: Tim basically said, ‘Well, of course, you’re going to play the Queen. Look, this is the first drawing I did.’ And there’s this picture of a really angry person. And then he said, ‘Look. All the artists even drew you.’ And there’s this horrible picture of this really old hag, with an oversized head, sort of growling. So, I play the Red Queen. She’s got emotional problems. It takes nothing for her to lose her temper. Her tantrums are that of a two-year-old. She doesn’t really rule through any kind of justice or fairness, but through terror. I chop off people’s heads. That’s my solution to everything. It probably comes from an underlying insecurity for the fact that she has such a big head, and everybody else has a normal head. I love that it’s really all about her—basically, she’s like a spoiled child. Everything’s done for her. She has absolutely no compassion for anybody, and is totally oblivious to anybody else’s feelings apart from her own. She basically has no heart, even though she’s the Queen of Hearts.
What is the relationship between the White Queen and the Red Queen?
Anne Hathaway: I just think that my character would never admit that she doesn’t like her sister. I think she tries to make excuses for her. She tries to find little things to love about her, but she really doesn’t that much. I think if the Red Queen were just a bit nicer to her—allow the possibility that they could be friends, allow the room for love—that she would be willing to give over to it. But the Red Queen just rubs her the wrong way. They’re not buddies—they’re just related.
Helena, what were your references for putting the Red Queen together? How much input did Tim have?
Helena Bonham Carter: I looked back at the book. Also, there was one of Lewis Carroll’s quotes that was really useful—that he saw her as somebody who was afflicted with an ungovernable passion, just full of this fury and rage. No matter what the offense, little or big, her solution to everything is to chop off a head. Tim said to watch Mommie Dearest, which is one of his favorite films. And Bette Davis was kind of an inspiration again, as her role as Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane was an inspiration for Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
Was the makeup process a difficult one?
Helena Bonham Carter: It’s basically a weird cartoon version of Elizabeth I, so they took my eyebrows away and gave me a high forehead. I had a bald cap that extends from the fold of my eyelids right across my head. And then, on top, I had this glorious red wig, and on top of it, a glorious crown. And I had lovely blue eye shadow, which is Tim, because he thinks that blue is sort of a trashy color. She’s somebody who really puts it all on, because she shouldn’t really be Queen at all. There’s a bit of Toulouse Lautrec, too. My lips are perfect, a bow mouth, a little heart. It takes about three hours. I’d get my head pasted down, my hair wrapped. Then, they’d wrap me in a cocoon, and I’d get to lie down and sleep while they painted me. When I wake up two hours later, I’m a really unattractive bald alien. Then they’d put my beauty make-up on, my eyebrows, my eye shadow, my lovely, big eyelashes—that was my idea—and my lips with a stencil. Then wig and crown.
Why did you want to be in this film?
Anne Hathaway: I’m just going to be a gushy fan for a second. I love Tim Burton-he’s one of my all-time favorite filmmakers. For as long as he’s been making films, I’ve been going to them opening weekend. And I watch them again and again on DVD. I love his aesthetic. I love his ability to pace as a filmmaker, his comfort with things that are kind of odd—he also finds a way to ground them. I think it’s very unusual to find a filmmaker who isn’t trying to be different for the sake of being different, to show you something you’ve never seen, but is actually yearning to stretch the limits of his imagination. Everything Tim does come from a very pure place. And I think that’s why his movies, in spite of the sometimes off-beat subject matter, have such heart. Alice itself is such a classic, amazing story, and it has been told so many times—but when I heard the combination Tim Burton/Alice in Wonderland, I knew it was going to be a very specific, very wonderful adventure.
What do you like about Tim’s work?
Helena Bonham Carter: It’s always a surprise to see what he’s had in his head. He’s so private when it comes to his creativity. He doesn’t let on. There’s a superstitious silence around it, and he does a lot of unconscious marinating—he doesn’t want to talk about things, because it’ll stop his process. I know now to give him a wide berth and I’ll never ask questions. And he will let me know the essentials. Sometimes, I feel very privileged, when he asks my opinion and wants to discuss things. He’s got an amazing emotional intuition about people, what fits, and what is needed.
Why are Carroll’s characters such wonderful subjects for Tim?
Helena Bonham Carter: With so many different characters, I think it’s quite tricky for Tim, because he’s said that they’re all mad, so we have to make each of them mad in a different way. The Hatter, the Red Queen, the March Hare, even the Rabbit’s got deep anxiety problems. Everybody is in a state of deep, emotional instability. Alice is the normal one. Personally, I find madness or any emotional instability fascinating. But for Tim, knowing him, he’s always had a compassion for outsiders. This is a collection of outsiders, particularly Alice herself. At the beginning, she’s portrayed as somebody who’s always felt that she’s somewhat odd. She has a different point-of-view on life. But that’s something to be celebrated, she discovers, not something to be ashamed of.
What does Mia Wasikowska bring to her role?
Anne Hathaway: Mia is an absolute delight of a young woman. She’s so playful, natural, and down-to-earth—but she also has this ethereal quality to her, she feels timeless. What she brings to Alice is very difficult to pull off. Every time I do a scene with her, I’m just amazed at what she’s doing with it and that a young actress can bring so much gravity to this world. It’s somewhat eerie, the way she’s able to communicate feeling and where Alice is at that moment. It was lovely to work with her, just to get to observe that.
Helena Bonham Carter:She’s lovely, Mia, and was a real find. She’s a really old soul, but without being precocious. And she’s got real wisdom and is so kind, and is a really good actress. She’s on the cusp of being between a woman and a child. I knew that was so important to Tim, to find someone who had a foot in both ages. That emotional stage informs the whole story, the whole dream.
Talk about the actor who plays The Mad Hatter.
Anne Hathaway: Johnny Depp-I have so much fun watching him in all of his movies as an audience member, so to actually get to watch him perform live is such a treat. He’s so inventive-and he’s just a very kind, warm man. But to actually watch him in his element, in his zone, just acting, it’s a thrill. I want him to do theater so that everyone else can get in on it. He’s very powerful. I just felt very privileged to get to watch him.
Helena Bonham Carter: Not that I would ever flatter myself saying that I’m remotely like Johnny Depp, but in a few ways, we are quite similar-we never like to look like ourselves. We like to grab every single prop that we can. And Tim basically peels everything off. So when I got to the set, I thought, ‘Oh God, he’s got lenses! He’s got an amazing look and costume, and he has every accent going on, as well!’ I’m sure Lewis Carroll wrote it for Johnny to play—he had a premonition that in 135 years’ time, Johnny should play the Mad Hatter. It’s really fun to get to work with him again. He’s so brilliant in his choices, and he’s really truly inventive. There’s always a surprise element as to what he’s going to come up with, he’s got a real imagination as to how to invent characters and he’s a fantastic comedian.
What makes the work Tim and Johnny have done together so profound?
Helena Bonham Carter: There’s a huge amount of trust, and they seem to elicit the best out of each other. There’s this empathic understanding between them—they’ve got the same taste, the same kind of perverse sense of humor. And it’s not particularly sophisticated. It’s sort of an 8-year-old boy’s sense of humor. So often, they’ll be laughing away, and then they’ll tell me what they’re laughing about, and it’s not so funny to me, but to them, it’s hysterical. They’re having a party all the time, so for them, it’s not really work. Johnny’s always taking risks for Tim because he knows Tim would never let him fail. And Tim knows that Johnny always understands what he wants and that he has everything that Tim admires in a performer.
What has been most rewarding about being in this movie?
Helena Bonham Carter: Working with Tim and Johnny. It’s always fun to work with them. No, it’s a privilege. To be a part of Wonderland and playing Queen! It’s also amazing because Tim bought this house as a production office. And it’s Arthur Rackham’s house, and he did his own illustrated book of Alice in the early 1900s. So, 100 years later, for Tim to be in the same house to re-imagine Alice, it’s kind of extraordinary. Rackham also illustrated Sleepy Hollow, so there’s been a creative connection across time, something weird and wonderful going on, so it all feels right. I had this hilarious moment, reading the script and coming across my character description, something like ‘Queen, small, but has very large-size head.’ So I loved being her. I miss being Queen.
What do audiences have to look forward to with this film?
Anne Hathaway: Because the world of this film begins and ends in the imagination of Tim Burton, you’re not seeing a movie that’s been shot on locations that you’ve seen a million times. Because this world has no rules, you’re seeing so many different and separate brushstrokes, colors, characterizations somehow getting combined through Tim. And what I think you’re getting is an absolute exploration of the imagination. I think that’s the essence of the book, and I think that’s the spirit Tim’s brought to the film. Everybody on the film was so clever and imaginative—and I think that’s what the film is about. How can we tell a story that honors the imagination in the most imaginative way humanly possible? That’s such a fantastic idea.
Story by Stephanie Nolasco
Starpulse contributing writer
Related: Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, Starpulse Exclusives, Interviews
Walt Disney Pictures
Photo Credits: Disney Enterprises, Inc
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