Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter have a royal sibling rivalry in 'Alice in Wonderland'

Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter

Lewis Carroll’s classic novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" has had such an impact on culture that even people who don’t like to read books are familiar with the story and the characters. In filmmaker Tim Burton’s hands, "Alice in Wonderland" has Alice (played by Mia Wasikowska) returning to Wonderland as a 19-year-old, and getting caught in the middle of a sisterly feud between the tyrannical Red Queen (played by Helena Bonham Carter) and the gentle-natured White Queen (played by Anne Hathaway).

The film’s colorful cast of characters also includes the Mad Hatter (played by Johnny Depp), the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen), the evil Knave of Hearts (played by Crispin Glover), and rotund twins Tweedledee and Tweedledum (portrayed by Matt Lucas). At the Los Angeles press junket for "Alice in Wonderland," Hathaway, Bonham Carter (who is Burton's longtime lady love), Sheen, Glover, Lucas and "Alice in Wonderland" producer Joe Roth gathered to talk about making the film at a press conference. Here’s what they had to say.

Helena Bonham Carter in "Alice in Wonderland"

Helena, what were the challenges of acting against a green screen?

Bonham Carter: No, it was all green. When you’re acting, you have to kind of imagine anyway. There’s one thing…the unsung heroes of it are these various green people that gave us their lines off. We had real proper actors who would dress in leotards and didn’t look that good at their best.

For instance, I’ve only met Michael Sheen in the last 12 hours. I mean, I have met him the night before, but he wasn’t there [on set]. I just had a 12-inch drawing of a rabbit. But then, behind him, was this green screen, green actor … so that’s what we had to act opposite. You know, that’s what we had to act opposite. [She says to Sheen] I would’ve appreciated if you had come in you bunny outfit once. But you didn’t!

Sheen: You didn’t see it, but I was outside the studio with my nose up against the glass, in a rabbit costume, going, "Please let me in!"

Bonham Carter: I wish! But it was, "No, no, he only acts by himself. And then Matt [Lucas] had to be always hunched over or no, on the floor, to give lines. Whenever I’d look at Matt [who plays Tweedledum and Tweedledee], he was always in deep discomfort because he had to try and make himself smaller. This actress [she points to Anne Hathaway] is the one who does her own special effects, but she didn’t have anything special done to her. She does her own gliding ….

Crispin [Glover], I don’t know how he did it. He was on crutches and had no eye and somehow managed to remain upright. I don’t know how he did that. We all have to act opposite tennis balls and bits of tape, but you do that anyway. And actually, tennis balls and bits of tape can be good actors. You know, the minimal. There’s a lot to be said for that.

Anne Hathaway in "Alice in Wonderland"

Anne, can you talk about playing the White Queen opposite Helena’s Red Queen character?

Hathaway: I’m so much more interested in what Helena has to say about it. [She laughs.] That was one of the most fun parts about my character was this freedom that Tim [Burton] gave me, from the first conversation we had, where he said, "In Wonderland, I don’t want anything to be all good or all bad, so I don’t want it to be the Red Queen is the bad one and you’re like the nice, benevolent one who’s all good."

So he said, "Have fun exploring the relationship between the two of them. They come from the same place." I thought, "Oh, how fun if my character has sort of a hidden psychosis … and is interested in knives and things like that, and is kind of adorable on the outside and has tried very hard to become this good, almost over-the-top, positive creature, but underneath she kind of has a murderous streak that comes out when she’s around weaponry?" So it wasn’t necessarily that they were opposites. They were just sisters who were different.

Sheen: I watched [our "Alice in Wonderland" movie] for the first time the other night, and the thing that struck me the most was the thing I liked most about the Red Queen was her vulnerability. And the thing I liked most about the White Queen was how sinister she was. So that worked brilliantly for me.

Bonham Carter: Thank you.

Sheen: It’s tragic when she says, "It is better to be feared than loved." That’s a tragic line.

Roth: That’s actually a line every studio head talks about.

Sheen: In my case, I thought it was, "It’s better to be furred than loved." I slightly misheard it.

The White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) in "Alice in Wonderland"

Michael, did you wish that your role in "Alice in Wonderland" was a live-action role instead of animated?

Sheen: I would’ve given anything — literally, anything — to put the ears and the tail on and jump around. I would’ve loved to have done that. But again, when I watched the film the other night, one of the things I loved the most was that the animals really do look like animals. They’re not humanized in any way, so that when a horse suddenly turns around to Crispin and says something disparaging about dogs, you really don’t expect it. It’s really effective. So I can see exactly why [there was] the idea of going for the animal thing [in animated form]. But I still very cute with the bunny nose, so maybe if there’s a sequel.

I just did a couple of sessions with Tim. I just had him all to myself in London and America. But I was filmed, not with a clever camera, just a basic camera … Tim said, "Really perform it. Don’t just do the voice. Move and perform as much as you can. Twitch your nose as much as you can." So I was amazed when I saw it how much of my all hand movements were there. I really recognized my hands. It’s really funny. I didn’t think I’d recognize all that stuff.

Bonham Carter: And your nose?

Sheen: Yeah, a bit of my nose as well. Definitely. You see, I lived with rabbits for six months beforehand. And I did a lot of yoga to build up my leg, so I could get my leg up … Matt likes it when I do it.

Lucas: I like it. It’s nice for me.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee (both played by Matt Lucas) and the White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) in "Alice in Wonderland"

Matt, how did you do your role playing Tweedledum and Tweedledee?

Lucas: What happened was I was in one of those green, very fetching Lycra body suits. Very slimming. But you could see my face, and it was my face matted on to the chubby casing that you see there on the Tweedles, for both characters. But there was another actor, Ethan Cohn, and he was great. He played whatever Tweedle I didn’t play at the time. So he had a brilliant memory. He’d say, "Remember you did it like that." "Oh yeah, thank you." Because it might be a couple of hours from when I played one Tweedle to the other. So in a way, he was my memory as much as anything else. I really wouldn’t have been able to play this part without him.

It was strange, because sometimes we were walking on stilts, because the first time [Tweedledum and Tweedledee] meet Alice, we’re a great deal larger than her. And then at other times, we’re crouched on the floor. I liked it. And I had my own trailer. I watched "TMZ" every morning until one morning I was on it and didn’t watch it any more. I don’t like the show anymore now. And they gave me matzo ball soup for lunch, and I had mint chocolate chip ice cream every day, and I liked it. Can I do more movies, please? Thank you!

Matt Lucas, Crispin Glover and Michael Sheen at an "Alice in Wonderland" fan event in Los Angeles, February 2010

Did you improvise any of that crazy dialogue?

Lucas: A little bit of improvising. There’s a bit where the Tweedles are being brought to the Red Queen, and she says, "Where are my fat boys?" Which I know that’s going to follow me around; people are going to scream that at me in the streets. But [considering] the other things they call me, the "fat boys" is better.

There’s a bit where I’m going, "He’d have pinched me. He’d have pinched me first." And we were improvising that. There’s a bit of pinching and kicking, that kind of childish sense of one-upmanship that I kind of wanted to put in there. Yeah, we were kind of improvising on set a bit, weren’t we?

Tim is so great to work with. Yeah, I’ve met Tim Burton. Because what he does is he sort of lets you have the first take to yourself. He never comes and says, "I want you to do this, this and this." The first take is always yours. You get a chance to do instinctively what comes out of you. You get to respond. It’s brilliant. He doesn’t use it. But it’s nice to be out of the house, isn’t really?

Roth: It’s called manipulation.

Lucas: Well, it worked on me! I’m very malleable in that regard, but it was great. And then [Tim Burton] will say, "OK, keep that bit; lose that bit." And he kind of refines and shapes what you’ve given him. I was really impressed. When I look at the movie, I think what I’ve done has been made so much by Tim and his technical team. I’m very flattered to be a small part of this.

Crispin Glover in "Alice in Wonderland"

Crispin, you actually worked on stilts for "Alice in Wonderland," right?

Glover: Right. I was on big, tall, green painter stilts for a lot of it. And I was green in the screen element, which tends to stick in your head after the day is over. But I loved it. I had a genuinely great time working on this film and grateful to be in it. I’m excited about it.

Lucas: You look younger now than when you did in "Back to the Future"! Have you actually gone back to the future?

Joe, how did you go about assembling this cast for "Alice in Wonderland"?

Roth: I hired Tim Burton. As a producer, you generally spend your time begging and wheedling and cajoling actors and agents and lawyers to get their clients in. When you hire Tim Burton, it’s literally the other way around. People come in and they want to be in the film. They want to work with Tim.

I think for [the role of] Alice, every female in the world between the ages of 14 and 40, whatever color, whatever they did, thought they could play Alice. Although there is a funny story about Anne [Hathaway]. As a producer, you’d think you’d want to meet actors all the time. Anne, whom I’ve known since "The Princess Diaries," is, I think, a huge, huge star. And I heard she was coming in to see me for Alice. And I did everything I could to not be there. I so did not want to be in the room, because at that point, Tim had already said he wanted to use an unknown for Alice.

And so as a producer, I said, "Oh no. She’s going to come in, and I love her, but she’s not going to get Alice. She can’t be Alice." So I’m pacing back and forth. And Anne comes in, and we talk for a while, and I’m hoping she doesn’t mention anything about the project. And then she goes, "Oh yeah. I want to be the White Queen." "Oh, great! The White Queen! That’s perfect for you!" She goes, "Oh, Alice? No, I’ve done that before." So it had a happy ending.

Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska and Joe Roth at an "Alice in Wonderland" fan event in Los Angeles, February 2010

Helena, what were the problems or challenges of having to spend hours in the makeup chair when you were doing "Alice in Wonderland"?

Bonham Carter: Speak to my husband. It wasn’t that long. I just said hours for the sympathy effect, but it was only two-and-a-half hours. I did exaggerate it, I guess … They had to get rid of my hairline, so you put a bald cap on. That takes about two and a half, hours and then they have to paint it and then they put my beauty makeup on. That took some time.

And my huge wig. But they didn’t blow my head up every morning. They did that on camera. I had this one camera. There are two cameras in the world that do this and they just blow your heads up. That’s all it does. And I had this huge camera dedicated to me, which was fine by me.

Did the makeup take longer than your makeup for "Planet of the Apes"?

Bonham Carter: No, no, no. That was much longer. That was four hours. No, he likes to put makeup on me. He likes to deform me. I love it that he likes to disfigure me. I mean, the boyfriend. No, I always like looking as different as I can.

Helena Bonham Carter in "Alice in Wonderland"

What were your experiences with reading "Alice in Wonderland" or "Jabberwocky’ before doing the movie?

Hathaway: I’m glad you just reminded me about "Jabberwocky," because when I was in fifth grade, I had a teacher, and he made the entire class memorize "Jabberwocky" and perform it. So, during the battle sequence, I made Tim let me recite the poem. He literally looked at me and said, "Well it's not going to be in the film." And I said, "I know, but just for my own sense of completion in my life, please let me do this."

So I didn't read "Alice [in Wonderland]" until I was in college. I was reading a lot of [Vladimir] Nabokov, and actually one of his big inspirations was Lewis Carroll so I thought, "Before I get too deep into him, I’ll read Lewis Carroll." Then I never went back to Nabokov. So that’s when I read it, and I was really moved by it.

I mean, she’s a very emotional character and a lot of people feel kind of confused at 19 [about] who they think they are [versus] who they want to be. You struggle with a sense of identity then, and at other times in your life. And I really read the book from that perspective, as a girl who's trying to find her identity, which is great because that's what the movie really focuses on: Which Alice are you? So that was my experience.

The White Rabbit (voiced by Michael Sheen) in "Alice in Wonderland"

Sheen: I think I knew, probably as most people do, the characters of "Alice in Wonderland" before I read the book. They’re just ingrained into Western consciousness. In some ways, for me, the allure of the story is that we all live in this illusion that we’re civilized and that everything makes sense and that everything has a place. And "Alice in Wonderland’ shows you that actually, it’s a very thin film between sanity and insanity and total wildness and chaos and fear and all that kind of stuff.

And somehow, that seems to be the most true to what it’s like to be a child, where things are both familiar and strange at the same time. When you think you know what something is, and then suddenly it shifts and becomes something else. And we kind of grow up and sort of forget the truth of that or buy into the illusion that that’s not the case. And I think one of the things why we’re drawn back into "Alice in Wonderland" all the time is that it reminds us, as all great Greek drama does, of what the actual truth about life is.

Bonham Carter: I agree.

Crispin Glover and Helena Bonham Carter in "Alice in Wonderland"

Glover: Strangely, I’d never read ["Alice in Wonderland"], even before starting the film. I’d felt like I had. But something I’ve noticed — I’ve done a few films that are based on pre-existing written elements — and I came to realize that for me, personally, earlier, I did read books right before I started acting in it. And I kind of realized it was a mistake for me to do it — not for everybody — but for me, I’d get very stuck into a certain concept. And I realized that, in general, for me as an actor, it’s better that I not get stuck on things.

Earlier in my career, I’d get very set on a particular idea and every take, I’d want to get into that particular idea. Now, I’ve kind of reversed and become expansive and want to give different versions for the editor to play with. So I purposely don’t read things, although I’m reading ["Alice in Wonderland"] right now, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s tremendous.

[Bonham Carter laughs loudly.]

Glover: Why is that so funny?

Bonham Carter: I don’t know. I love you.

Helena Bonham Carter and Crispin Glover in "Alice in Wonderland"

Helena, as a mother, what do you think is the appropriate age for children to see your "Alice in Wonderland" movie?

Bonham Carter: I don’t know. Tim always has this theory that it’s us that have got the problem, that we impose fears on our kids, and the kids are actually quite robust. But it depends on your kid. I mean, we haven’t shown it to Billy [our 6-year-old son] yet, just because it wasn’t finished until a few days ago. I don’t know.

Roth: I sat next to a 6-year-old watching it … who was not my child. And every 15 minutes I’d go, "Is that scary? Did that scare you?" And he kept insisting that it didn’t.

Bonham Carter: But you did [scare him]!

Roth: That’s why I asked him. I think it’s personal.

Bonham Carter: You know, there was that 3-D thing. When we were trying to find a nursery school for our son, Bill, but apparently, according to the Montessori method, they can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy until age 6. She had recommended no fairytales, so that’s why we didn’t send Bill to Montessori, because having Tim Burton and fairytales are not good idea. "Oh, OK."

Sheen: Someone told me once that there’s a part of our brain — I don’t know if this is true — that when we’re acting, something traumatic is going on, part of our brain actually believes this is true, so part of us is traumatized as actors — which probably explains why actors are the way they are. Other actors, not me. That’s why I don’t like to act with other actors.

Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway at an "Alice in Wonderland" fan event in Los Angeles, February 2010

Anne, in the "Alice in Wonderland" press notes, you said you played the White Queen as a punk-rock vegan pacifist. Can you talk you talk about that?

Hathaway: The pacifist thing was in the script. My character has taken a vow of non-violence. But, it was also in the script that when she talks about that, she hits a bug and [she enjoys killing it]. So I thought about it. That kind of gave me the idea that she’s taken this vow against her will, that she recognizes that her sister is sick and believes that a means to an end is cutting people’s heads off and it’s kind of her default setting. I’m like, "I don’t want her to be in charge, so I guess I have to be in charge."

But I like the idea that my character probably, left to her own devices, might not have wanted to be queen. So then I started to think about who she was in her "off-queen" time. And then I realized she spends a lot of time in the kitchen and the non-violence thing and her being a vegan, and then I just imagined her in mosh pits — not really punching anyone but really butting against people very hard.

And then I thought she’d like, for some reason, I like Blondie so I thought, you know, she’s blonde, so that was kind of obvious. But I still wanted her to have a regal thing … Tthere’s a Greta Garbo movie. I watched a lot of her silent films, because I still think no one has ever quite moved on film the way she did. I mean, her whole body just looks like it’s breathing. And it was a time where acting was very stylized to kind of be very over-the-top and she’s utterly real in it. I don’t remember. I think it’s called "The Loose Woman" or "The Temptress." I forget, but she arrives on a train and she’s beautiful. I don’t remember what the name of the film is now. I’m sorry.

Would you have preferred to play a live-action character or an animated/CGI character in "Alice in Wonderland"?

Hathaway: Honestly, I would do anything … I'm fond of saying that I would have played a mushroom in this if that’s the way [Tim Burton] saw me in it. So I would have happily donned my green onesie and been up in stilts. I would have just done anything to be in "[Alice in] Wonderland." But, I don’t know. It’s kind of nice to be a real person as well. I have no preference. I’m sorry, I don’t.

Crispin Glover, Michael Sheen and Matt Lucas at an "Alice in Wonderland" fan event in Los Angeles, February 2010

What were your loved ones’ reactions when they first saw you as your "Alice in Wonderland" characters?

Bonham Carter: Well, my little daughter [Nell], who was only 1, she went, "Mommy!" It was quite bizarre. But my son, who is frailer or more sensitive, he just didn’t want to look at me.

Sheen: My daughter is still living off the fact that I’m in "New Moon." Now I’m in "Alice in Wonderland" as well, and it’s just gone stratospheric. In that school, I’m treated like royalty now. But everyone is convinced that I have red eyes because that’s two characters — well, pink eyes in this ["Alice in Wonderland"], but red eyes.

Lucas: I’m gay and I don’t have kids, but if you’re willing to hang on, I’m willing to have some. I’ll go on one of those conversion courses, Exodus, I think they’re called. I’ll have some kids, show them the movie in six or seven years. Just hold there, wait there, and I’ll be back.

Do actors still employ the method of dreaming the impossible?

Sheen: If I had only done what I believed was possible, I probably would never have left my bedroom. I am, by nature, an anxious fearful person — and so just to go out into the world is a scary thing. So if I was left to my own devices, I probably wouldn’t do anything. I’ve learned over time that you’re only limited by your own beliefs by what’s possible, and they can be quite narrow.

So I’ve now given myself a rule, which I wish I hadn’t: I can’t say no to anything if the reason I want to say no is because it’s scary. I can say no for other things. And that has led me to do very frightening things but very fulfilling afterward, and I would never have believed that was possible.

Helena Bonham Carter in "Alice in Wonderland"

Helena, do you gravitate more toward playing beautiful sex symbols or frightening villains?

Bonham Carter: Ah, is this the sex symbol one, I guess. Frightening sex symbol. Actually, somebody did actually propose to me in the lift today, because in the light they found me attractive with a big head. No, you know what? Because I’m older, I only get villains. Look, whatever is well-written and has somebody behind the camera that knows what they’re doing and is a really good storyteller, I’ll act anything!

You know what was good actually is [Tim] digitalized my waist. Did anyone notice that? Because they go on about my head, but my waist is digitalized. He told me that right at the beginning. He said, "Don’t worry. You’re going to have it, obviously. Don’t go for the full pull-in with the corset every morning," and so I didn’t. And then, halfway through, he said, "You know, the waist is going to cost too much." So then, halfway through, suddenly, I went for the pull, and then, luckily, at the end, somebody just told me, "No, we did. We could do the waist."