People | March 22, 2016 10:26 AM EDT
50 Facts About Mia Wasikowska - Alice From The Upcoming ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’
Mia Wasikowska is an Australian-Polish actress and director, famous for her role as Alice in the 2010 movie “Alice in Wonderland.” Here are 50 facts about the actress:
- In the year 2010, she was tied with Johnny Depp, her co-star in the movie “Alice in Wonderland,” as the second highest grossing actor, with Leonardo DiCaprio being the first.
- She was named amongst the “Top Ten Actors to Watch,” by Variety magazine in 2008.
- She was named to the “Time 100,” which lists the world's most influential people on April 21, 2011. It also featured a brief essay written by Glenn Close, her co-star in “Albert Nobbs.”
- She was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2011.
- She was born in the year 1989 in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Her birthday is reported to be October 14 in the World Wide Web, but once on “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” Wasikowska revealed that it was not her real birthday. She even refused to reveal her real birthday as she wants to keep it within her friends and family.
- Her father, John Reid, is an Australian photographer and collagist, while her mother, Marzena Wasikowska, is also a Polish-born photographer. She has two siblings – an older sister Jess and a younger brother Kai.
- She along with her sister and brother were subjects of her mother’s production of her collection of work. About that experience, she once explained to Johanna Schneller of the Toronto Globe and Mail that "We never had to smile or perform. We weren't always conscious of being photographed. We'd just do our thing, and she'd take pictures of us."
- She started her training as a ballerina at the age of nine with Jackie Hallahan at the Canberra Dance Development Centre.
- At the age of 13, she took around 35 hours of week of training in the en pointe part of ballerina, while attending full-time school.
- Though her passion for ballet dancing waned due to the pressure in achieving perfection and the dissatisfaction in the industry, even today, she feels her ballet training is what helps her in handling the nerves in auditions.
- However, she was exposed to European and Australian cinema in the very early age. She was inspired to become an actress after watching Holly Hunter in “The Piano” and Gena Rowlands in “A Woman Under the Influence.”
- She managed to land her first acting role successfully through an Australian talent agency, though she contacted twelve Australian talent agencies.
- She was just 15 years old when she first debuted as Lilya in a feature film “Suburban Mayhem,” in 2006. Her performance in the film even earned her a Young Actor’s AFI Award.
- However, before “Suburban Mayhem,” her first screen appearance was with an Australian television drama “All Saints,” from 2004-2005.
- She was cast on spot in the drama “September,” in the year 2007, by director Peter Carstairs following her audition. She bagged the role by beating nearly 200 other actresses.
- The same year she was also cast in the crocodile horror film “Rogue,” alongside Radha Mitchell and Sam Worthington. It is said that she was quietly observing everyone and everything that happened on the set with her fellow actor even saying "We didn't hear a peep out of her for three weeks, which earned her the nickname of 'Rowdy.'"
- During the filming of her part as Sherry in the “Rogue,” she happened to contract heat stroke during one specially hot day.
- Her first breakthrough role in the American cinema was in HBO's acclaimed weekly drama “In Treatment,” playing the character of Sophie, a suicidal gymnast.
- For her part in “In Treatment,” which earned her critical acclaim along with praises for her excellent American accent, she auditioned through only videotape.
- When asked about her American accent, she once revealed in an interview with Variety magazine that “she was something of a mimic as a child and that the large influx of American films and TV shows made it easier for Australians to pick up the accent.”
- She had to enroll to correspondence courses and quit schooling in Canberra as she had to move to Los Angeles for three months for filming her part in “In Treatment.”
- Her performance in “In Treatment,” earned her American film appearances, though for her first role as Chaya in “Defiance,” alongside Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, director Edward Zwick did not see her role in “In Treatment.”
- In an interview with Australian edition of Vogue, Zwick said about casting her in “Defiance,” without watching her earlier performances that "Her inner life is so vivid that it comes across even when she's being still."
- She was the only non-American actress to be cast in the 2009 movie “That Evening Sun,” as the director Scott Teems was adamant at casting only all native Southerners.
- Initially, director Teems balked at the suggestion of casting Wasikowska in the role of Pamela Choat, in “That Evening Sun,” but agreed to her audition after unsuccessful auditions from other actresses. However, she managed to impress Teems with her performance.
- She had only two hours for the audition of “That Evening Sun,” and within that time, she quickly learnt a Southern accent to impress the director Teems by watching clips of “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”
- She was cast as Alice Kingsleigh, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway, in Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland. Director Burton claimed her “old-soul quality,” to be the main reason for casting her.
- Later in an interview, Burton said about casting her that “We wanted somebody who had... it's hard to put into words, but just had a gravity to her, an internal life, something that you could see the wheels turning. It's just a simple kind of power to her that we really liked. Not flamboyant, not very showy, but just somebody that's got a lot of internal life to her. That's why I picked her.”
- After a videotaped audition, a live reading in Los Angeles, she flew to London three times from Australia in just as many as weeks for the auditions for her role in “Alice in Wonderland.”
- She beat out several actresses including Amanda Seyfried and Lindsay Lohan, for her role as Alice in “Alice in Wonderland,” which is the fifteenth highest-grossing film of all time.
- Her performance as Alice in the 2010 movie “Alice in Wonderland,” was praised by Independent columnist Liz Hoggard, stating that her character was as a role model for girls, being "stubborn, brave, non-girlie.”
- In preparation for her role as Alice, she re-read the Lewis Carroll books, which she read as a child and even watched the Jan Švankmajer's 1988 stop-motion film “Alice” again.
- She starred in the title character in Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of “Jane Eyre.” Just after the completion of “Alice in Wonderland,” she read the novel and asked if a script existed to her agent. Two months later, she received a script from director Fukunaga.
- Director Fukunaga sought the opinion of director Gus Van Sant as he was not sure about casting Wasikowska in the role of “Jane Eyre,” since he was not familiar with her earlier works. In an interview with BlackBook magazine, Fukunaga remembered that "Gus wrote back: 'Cast her.'"
- In fact, Ellen Page was the initial choice for the role of “Jane Eyre,” who withdrew due to delays in production.
- Due to her filming schedule in “Jane Eyre,” conflicted with Julia Leigh's 2011 Australian independent film “Sleeping Beauty,” she had to withdraw from it and was replaced by Emily Browing.
- Bring an avid photographer, she used to capture images of her film sets with a Rolleiflex camera. She even got a secret pocket sewn into one of her costumes in the movie “Jane Eyre,” in which she carried a smaller digital camera. One of her captured images that featured the director Fukunaga and her co-star Jamie Bell, was selected as a finalist in the 2011 National Photographic Portrait Prize hosted by Australia's National Portrait Gallery on 24 February 2011.
- She was one among the many actresses shortlisted for the role of Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” However, she had to decline the role due to the time commitment involved with the production.
- She was actually the last minute replacement for Amanda Seyfried in the role of Helen Dawes in Rodrigo Garcia's “Albert Nobbs.”
- She starred in the lead role in Park Chan-wook's “Stoker,” alongside Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode. She happened to land the role as India Stoker, as the director was impressed with her performance in the 2008 zombie short film “I Love Sarah Jane.”
- According to her co-star Kidman in the movie “Stoker,” Wasikowska was always reading between takes, including the works of Anton Chekhov, David Mamet and Tennessee Williams.
- In her entire scenes in the movie “Stoker,” she feels her favorite scene to film was the piano duet between her and Matthew Goode.
- She was cast in the lead role of director John Curran's adaptation of the Robyn Davidson memoir – “Tracks,” which was being developed for many years. In fact the development of the movie adaptation started even before Wasikowska was born.
- In the movie “Tracks,” for the scenes she had to spend with a snake, she was given a choice of seven snakes and was asked to hand-pick any one she prefers. For the scenes with camels, she was only given three days in a "camel boot camp," with Robyn Davidson himself being one of the instructors.
- She made her directorial debut with a 2013 Australian anthology film “The Turning,” which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August 2013. The film, which was nominated for the 2013 Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Feature Film, was based on a collection of short stories by Tim Winton, an Australian author.
- She began dating the American actor, Jesse Adam Eisenberg, whom she reportedly met at the sets of her 2013 movie “The Double.”
- In 2014, she played the title role in Sophie Barthes' film adaptation of “Madame Bovary,” which is actually the fifth period drama set in the 19th century that she has acted.
- She replaced Emma Stone in the horror movie “Crimson Peak,” in which she was cast as Edith Cushing, opposite Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain. This is the second instance she had collaborated with Hiddleston, following the 2013 vampire movie “Only Lovers Left Alive.”
- Her performance as Edith Cushing in “Crimson Peak,” was well received by critics and even earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the Saturn Awards, with the result being pending as of the date of writing.
- She will reprise her role as Alice Kingsleigh in the 2016 movie “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” sequel to 2010 “Alice in Wonderland.”
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