Wasikowska: 'I've been haunted by Alice'

Mia Wasikowska has admitted that she has always been haunted by Alice In Wonderland.

The actress, who plays the lead role in Tim Burton's new movie, explained that she read Lewis Carroll's books when she was younger.

"My other encounter with Alice was the Czech director Jan Svankmajer's version, a stop-motion animated film, which is incredible," she told The Times. "When we were kids, my mum would pop it in the VCR player.

"We would be disturbed, and wouldn't really understand it, but we couldn't look away because it was too intriguing. So I had kept that feeling about Alice, a kind of haunting feeling."

Wasikowska added that she enjoyed working on Burton's film because it adds a new twist to the popular story.

"It was like finding the person inside or underneath the iconic Alice," she explained. "Now she's an older Alice, who is experiencing what many teenagers are experiencing - a kind of awkwardness, discomfort in your skin and in your society or among your peers, a feeling of isolation."

Alice In Wonderland will be released in cinemas on March 5.