Throw out the tea party dress, SyFy’s two-night television event, “Alice”, looks to be a fantastical, modern, scifi interpretation of the Lewis Carroll tales, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass”.
Inspired by the classic tale, writer/director Nick Willing’s “Alice” tells the story of a modern-day Alice Hamilton, played by Caterina Scorsone, as “a fiercely independent twenty-something who suddenly finds herself on the other side of a looking glass. She is a stranger in an outlandish city of twisted towers and casinos built out of playing cards, all under the rule of the deliciously devilish Queen of Hearts, played by Oscar winner Kathy Bates, who’s not very happy about Alice’s arrival.” Nick Willling is also the one responsible for the re-imagining of “The Wizard of Oz” in SyFy’s “Tin Man”.
Scorsone talks about the differences between this new Alice and the classic-Alice:
“In the Lewis Carroll story, Alice was this young girl, and in this version she’s not. That’s significant. In the books, because she’s a child, she doesn’t have a lot of history and life of her own. In this version, Alice comes with a full trunk of luggage with her own traumas and history and scars. In the original story, Alice finds herself in Wonderland and walks through this world and encounters these really interesting characters, and so her adventure is these little vignettes.”
Writer/director Nick Willing expounds on this background on Alice:
“It becomes clear that she’s been abandoned by her father as a child. So she’s got all of these daddy issues, relationship issues, and a lot of emotional repression. Basically, throughout the course of the film, we journey with her into her interior life, which is Wonderland, and she becomes liberated from herself. So it’s this beautiful journey of maturation for this woman who really hasn’t been able to embrace her womanhood up to this point.”
“Alice” also stars Tim Curry (Rocky Horror) as Dodo, Colm Meaney (Star Trek:DS9) as the King of Hearts, Philip Winchester (Crusoe) as Jack Chase, Matt Frewer (Watchmen) as the White Knight, Andrew Lee Potts (Primeval) as Hatter, Harry Dean Stanton (Big Love) as the Caterpillar, Alessandro Juliani (BSG) as the 9 of Clubs, Timothy Webber (Taken) as Carpenter, Alex Diakun (Sanctuary) as Ratcatcher, Zak Santiago (Kingdom Hospital) as 10 of Clubs, and Eugene Lipinski (Animorphs) as Doctors Dee and Dum.
The buzz is so strong on this one, that there’s already talk of a sequel. Scorsone confirms that she is definitely game for the sequel:
“This was just a really, really positive experience on a personal level. So the combination of having had a really strong, interesting female character to play and having a really great group of people to work with, and not having to do it for years [as a TV series regular], I think I’d be all over it, doing more. I know that they have been talking about it, so I know there are some ideas for it if they wanted to do more. And, yeah, I’d totally be game.”
Take a look behind the scenes! Check out this promo and behind the scenes interview with Kathy Bates (who doesn’t break her character’s accent for the interview) and writer/director Nick Willing.
Behind the scenes of “Alice” with Kathy Bates and Nick Willing:
The “Alice” two-night movie event begins on SyFy this Sunday, December 6th at 9pm ET/PT and concludes on Monday, December 7th in two two-hour parts.
[Source] SyFy
