Mia Wasikowska

Hi, I'm Craig Young and uh welcome to Young Hollywood. We are very fortunate to have in the studio with us today Mia Wasikowska. Did I pronounce that correctly?

Very good.

I've practiced all morning to try and get that right. Have you ever thought about changing your surname to like Smith?

It's crossed my mind, but no.

Now, um you're in LA right now to promote your upcoming movie, The Kids Are All Right. Yeah. tell us a little bit about your character in that movie. It has a very interesting family setup, right?

Yeah, well the film's about a gay couple whose two kids decide that they want to find their biological father. So um I play Joni who's um the older sister in the movie and um yeah, she she's like a a young girl about to go off to college.

And the movie was well received at the Sundance Film Festival this year. Did you get to go to Sundance?

Yeah. Yeah, I did. I got to go.

You've been before or was this your first time?

I hadn't. This is my first time at Sundance. And um it was just, yeah, it was wonderful. Being in the screening and everyone really enjoying it and um it was good to see that.

Did you get to do any skiing or

I didn't actually. I would have loved to, but um no, hopefully next time.

Now, most of our audience will probably know you from uh the movie Alice in Wonderland. Uh what was that like? I mean talk us through the process of first off getting the role of Alice and and how it was filming with Tim Burton. It was such a different experience to to a film like this.

Um we shot three months on green screen. Um so a lot of the time it was, you know, with the animated characters. It was like tennis balls and and sticky tape and things like that. Um but I I did get to shoot with the other actors. Um

How what was it like working with tennis balls? I mean, did they give you much feedback?

Uh unfortunately not very They're not very good actors. So yeah, they just like stare at you blankly, but um, yeah, and then this was like done in 21 days and and completely sort of, you know, quick, fast shoot, which was which was also really great.

I mean, obviously, they're two very different styles of acting when you're acting with like great actors and then tennis balls. Which which do you prefer?

Uh I like, you know, obviously, like looking at people's faces. So the latter I prefer. And um, yeah, I come from like, you know, smaller sort of independent films in Australia. So it was nice to get back to that and to do that in this film.

Now, how did you make the uh the leap across from Australia to uh LA?

I came across here when I was 16 for the first time and I I've, you know, I've always lived in Australia, but I came here for a HBO show called In Treatment and then slowly started, you know, getting other films. So I still live at home in Australia, but I I managed to come out here and and work, which is really nice.

That's great. Now, you do an amazing American accent. Um but you're you're just about to do Jane Eyre.

Yeah, that's right.

And so how's your English accent?

It's not bad. Yeah, it's good. And the the accent for Jane Eyre is like a Northern English accent. So it's particularly like unusual, but but I I like doing an accent. I think it's really fun to have I like that.

Awesome. Thank you very much for being with us today, Mia.

Thanks for having me.