Juno Temple Was 'Devastated' When Tim Burton Didn't Want Her for Alice in Wonderland: 'A Dream Role For Me'

Juno Temple reflects on turning down the role of Alice in the 2010s Alice in Wonderlandand how she realized that in the end she “wasn’t right” for the role.

During a conversation with Miles Teller for Interview, the Venom: The Last Dance The 35-year-old actress revealed that playing the titular Alice was her “dream role”.

“I think early on in your career you have to be able to understand why ‘no’ is happening,” she said. “Of course, sometimes you can’t help but take it personally. I was 17 when Tim Burton made it Alice in Wonderland. I have a copy of the first edition Alice in Wonderland which I actually sleep with on the nightstand like it’s the Bible.”

While Temple “really” wanted to portray Alice at the time, things did not go as she had hoped. The role eventually went to Mia Wasikowska, and Temple failed to land an audition with Burton, now 66.

Juno Temple attends the 2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party.

Taylor Hill/Getty

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“I remember my agent called, and the first thing he said was, ‘Are you sitting down? We just wanted to let you know that Tim Burton doesn’t think you’re right for Alice, so there’s not really going to be an audition for it,'” Temple recalled. – I was devastated.

“I watched the movie. And this was a very important realization for me at the age of 17 – I wasn’t right for Alice,” she added. “I’m the queen of hearts. When you see the final product, it always makes sense why you weren’t right for the role at that moment. I auditioned for a couple of those Disney remakes. And it’s like, I’m not Cinderella.”

The actress, who eventually took on the role of Thistlewit in the 2014 Disney film. Evilshe told Teller that when she’s reading for a new role, she occasionally recommends another actor if she doesn’t think she’s a good fit.

“I think, ‘Maybe I’m not right for this, but you know who is? I have a really great person you should meet.’ People have always said it’s important to be competitive in this industry, and to a certain extent it is, but I also think it’s very important to be supportive,” she said.

“Actors, we’re a bunch of weird people and we have weird things that turn us on and off. And I respect that on a huge level. Because like you said, a movie is forever. You don’t want to pretend.”

Juno Temple and Chiwetel Ejiofor in “Venom: The Last Dance.”

Laura Radford

Speaking about other roles she wanted to try her hand at, Temple also said that at one point during production in 2014, A birderthere was a “conflict” with Emma Stone’s schedule. She read the script and was going to audition — but that didn’t go as planned either, she told Teller: “I was on my way to the audition, and then my agents called me and said, ‘They got the schedule.’ (Stone received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for the film.)

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Temple’s latest interview comes on the heels of her Marvel debut The last dancein which she plays scientist Dr. Teddy Paine. The film stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock — the host of an alien symbiote named Venom — and was directed by Kelly Marcel.

The actress told PEOPLE last month that she paid attention to her character’s backstory when embarking on her latest project.

Juno Temple September 15, 2024

Getty Images

“Whenever you’re in someone else’s, you really want to think about what’s going on in the moment when you meet them, what’s affecting them and how they’re affecting the people around them,” she said. “But I also think it’s a lot about reacting with the people you work with, and I’ve been really lucky with my costs.”

Temple added that she “learned a lot” and “also had a lot of fun” working on the latest Poison movie, now in theaters.

“We got to have some really amazing scenes that I was really grateful for,” Temple said.

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Source: HIS Education