'I had no idea what was going on'

Hathaway made her debut in the hit comedy The Princess Diaries, and reprised her role in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement. She has earned acclaim for her work in films like Get Smart, Becoming Jane, The Devil Wears Prada and Brokeback Mountain.
Hathaway currently stars as the White Queen in Tim Burton’s epic 3D fantasy adventure Alice In Wonderland.

Excerpts from an interview

Is this an adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s books?

This is Alice in Wonderland ten years later. The story isn’t the same. Alice knows that she isn’t all the things that people are saying that she is, and so, by going through all of them, she gets a better idea of what she is. So I think if the book is about Alice exploring her imagination, this one is about Alice finding her soul.   

Describe the character you play.

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. Then a little bit of Norma Desmond got thrown in there, too. And she just emerged.

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.

Why did you want to be in this film?

I’m just going to be a gushy fan for a second. I love Tim Burton — he’s one of my all-time favourite film-makers. 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 and his ability to pace as a film-maker, his comfort with odd things — he also finds a way to ground them. It’s very unusual to find a film-maker 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.  

What is your impression about how this film was made?

It sounds silly, but I had no idea what was going on. I walked in and it was like being in a neon-green terrarium, green on all sides, and tons of empty space. Tim knew what was going on — he was the one in control of it. All I needed to do was hit my mark and say my lines, and wait for Tim to tell me that we’re ready to move on. And that was my approach to it. I didn’t put any other pressure on myself. I just showed up and
acted.   

What are you wearing in this movie?

I’m wearing a dress designed by Colleen Atwood. It’s grand and the most fragile dress I’ve ever worn. If you ever had a dream of being any kind of fairy princess, this is the dress you would wear. I love the idea that it’s this idealised, fairy-tale queen, but it is in a Tim Burton movie, so there’s darkness mixed up with it as well.