MANILA, Philippines - Director Tim Burton re-imagines Alice in Wonderland into an epic 3D fantasy adventure with a magical and imaginative twist on some of the most beloved stories of all time. Johnny Depp stars as the Mad Hatter and Mia Wasikowska as 19-year-old Alice, who returns to the whimsical world she first encountered as a young girl.
Tim shares his thoughts on the movie.
What appeals to you about this story?
“In any fairy tale land, there is good and bad. What I liked about this is that everything is slightly off, even the good people. That, to me, is something different.”
When you were first approached to direct it, what was your reaction?
“They gave me a script and they said 3D. And even before I read it, I thought, that’s intriguing, and what I liked about Linda Woolverton’s script was she made it a story, gave it a shape for a movie that’s not necessarily the book. So all those elements seemed exciting to me.”
Why did you make Alice 19?
“That age just seems to me to be a crossroads. There, I think you’re entering a culture where you’re pressured into society, or getting married, or some other thing. And she just seems to me to be at that point where you’re at an emotional crossroads. I just felt like Alice is an interesting character, because she’s at that age, and she’s got both a young person’s and an old person’s soul. There’s a dynamic — at odds feeling both the young and the old, and then reconciling those two things. And, so, her adventures are her coming to terms with who she is and gaining her personal strength. It seemed like the right age to explore that dynamic of somebody, at a moment of change.”
What is Johnny Depp’s approach to playing such a vivid character as The Mad Hatter?
“It is an iconic character and it’s been portrayed in animation, in live-action. I think Johnny tried to find grounding with the character, something you can feel, as opposed to him just being ‘mad.’ With a lot of versions, it’s just a one-note character, and his goal was to bring out a human side to the strangeness of the character. I’ve worked with him for many years, and he always tries to do something like that, and this time was no exception.”
Why did you choose to make the film in 3D?
“Well, 3D is not a fad. It’s here to stay. It doesn’t mean that every movie’s going to be made in 3D. But at the same time, Alice in 3D, just because of the material, it seemed to fit. So, instead of it just being a given, we tried to treat it as though it was a part of Wonderland. Matching the medium with the material.”
Opening soon in theaters, Alice in Wonderland is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.