Park Chan-Wook’s (Old Boy) American debut Stoker, an odd little film if ever there was one, has the Asian auteur taking on Hitchcock. Ostensibly a remake/reimagining/updating of Hitch’s own Shadow of a Doubt, Stoker centers on a young pubescent girl, whose father has recently died under ‘mysterious’ circumstances. Enter an equally ‘mysterious’ long lost uncle (Mathew Goode), a series of murders, a distant never-present mother (Nicole Kidman) – and Park has all the ingredients he needs to make a pretty damn efficient thriller/melodrama. Ol’ Hitch would be proud.
Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) is the standout here. As India, the fatherless young woman who comes to suspect her ‘Uncle Charlie’ is a murderer, Wasikowska deftly uses her delicate features as a counterbalance to her character’s darker and more perverse proclivities -- for the film is less a mystery about who Uncle Charlie is and more so who India really is. In the following interview with Wasikowska, she discusses working with Park Chan Wook, India’s ‘self-discovery’, a potential sequel to Alice in Wonderland and her upcoming vampire Jim Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive. For the full interview, hit the jump.
Of note: there are some spoilers in the following interview. And if you missed my interview with Nicole Kidman, you can watch it here.
Mia Wasikowska:
- 00:15 – Does Park Chan-Wook’s incredibly stylized approach to the film limit the amount of choices you have as an actor?
- 00:55 – Rehearsal process on Stoker
- 01:24 – A favorite shot when shooting the picture?
- 01:55 – Finding the motivation for India’s arc
- 03:19 – On a potential sequel to Alice in Wonderland
- 03:26 – On working with Jim Jarmusch on Only Lovers Left Alive
