Go ask Alice

Are you ready for a trip down the rabbit hole? We caught up with Mia Wasikowska, the 20-year-old Aussie newcomer who plays the title role in “Alice in Wonderland,” out March 5.

The film is called “Alice in Wonderland,” but really this is neither a pure adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s writings nor a remake of previous films. Mia Wasikowska: It’s a completely different and new story, but it has a lot of the same characters in it. It has the same feel of the original stories, but it’s really fun to explore a story that goes further and imagine what all these characters would be like several years down the tracks. Alice doesn’t have a recollection of her first visit there. She’s gone back and is discovering this world and finding herself again in this place that she doesn’t even remember.

This movie took you into the world of green-screen moviemaking. I visited the set and it was a little disorientating just walking around in there; it messes up your depth perception. Was it a struggle for you in any way?

It is really strange. But Wonderland itself is bizarre and weird and comical and confusing, so it’s appropriate that, as you say, we were in this green-screen environment where it doesn’t always make sense to you. Things were just really odd and weird, and I suppose that was suitable to what we were working on. It put you in the right frame of mind. And it made you rely on your imagination more.

Tim’s background is as an artist and, as you say, he is so visual in his storytelling -- when he’s working with the actors, does that help him or handicap him in communicating what he wants from the performances?

Right from the beginning, we had a very similar view as to how Alice should be played. . . . He’s very precise and clear and patient, and that was exactly what I needed as far as direction in this kind of film because it was so complicated [in the filming process]. One of the most interesting things about Tim is that he does communicate visually, but he is also very precise and uses a language that people can identify with.

What was your sense of Johnny Depp?

He is such a cool guy. He has the humanity to keep this sense of self. He’s very kind and generous and so smart. To be able to watch Johnny -- just like with Tim -- as he takes something from the page to reality and how hard he works and what he brought to it and how much he brought to it, it was amazing. It is inspiring too that he does things in a purely joyous way and has fun with it all, because so often there are people who seem disgruntled. To keep that love of what you do is so important. And watching him and Tim work together is fun. They have a very deep rapport. Watching them, it’s like they speak their very own language.

Coming in to this project, I’m sure you made a lot of decisions about what you wanted to do with the character. What were some of the things you didn’t want to do with your Alice?

I suppose I would say I didn’t want to bring in a lot of the baggage that is associated with “Alice in Wonderland” and just find the Alice that a lot of girls would identify with. . . . She’s at a crossroads in her life. So many people have an idea of how Alice should be played and there are these images in the public mind about her, but I wanted to keep to my own ideas how she would be and be true to that in the performance. The most important thing was to find the girl beneath this iconic figure.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com