Prominent Poles
Mia Wasikowska actress (currently in the United States).
Born: October 14, 1989 Canberra, Australia
Early days. Wasikowska was born and raised in Canberra, where she continues to reside with her parents and brother and sister. Her mother, Marzena Wasikowska, is a photographer from Poland while her father, John Reid, is an Australian painter-and-collagist. As a child, she frequently accompanied her parents on their gallery rounds in Europe, and in her spare time, she continues to enjoy photography. From the age of nine to 15, she trained as a ballet dancer 35 hours a week, aspiring to become a prima ballerina. However, at age 14 she began to turn away from ballet, "The thing I took issue with was having to have the perfect body. There wasn�t any room for fault or imperfection." She turned her attention to acting, "Film is a lot more about life, and so it�s all about the things we do that are imperfect. That really interested me more.�
Career. In 2004, she landed her first acting role with a two-episode stint on the Australian soap All Saints. In 2006, she appeared in the film Suburban Mayhem for which she received a nomination for a Young Actor's AFI Award. She also starred in several Australian short films and a horror movie, Rogue. In the United States, Wasikowska earned critical acclaim for her performance in HBO's In Treatment, playing Sophie, a troubled teenager who is sent to Gabriel Byrne's psychotherapist following a suspected suicide attempt. Praised for her excellent American accent, she revealed that she was something of a mimic as a child and that the large influx of American films and TV shows made it easier for Australians to pick up the accent. Following In Treatment, Wasikowska played supporting roles in several feature films. Her first American film was Defiance starring Daniel Craig. On casting Wasikowska, director Edward Zwick stated: "Her inner life is so vivid that it comes across even when she's being still." Her next role was that of Elinor Smith, a young female aviator and rival of Hilary Swank's Amelia Earhart in Amelia. She also appeared in the Southern Gothic indie film That Evening Sun opposite Hal Holbrook, having impressed the director despite his initial preference to cast only Southerners. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Independent Spirit Award for the film. In July 2008, after a long search, Wasikowska was chosen to play the title role in Tim Burton's interpretation of Alice in Wonderland, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. In the film, the White Rabbit leads 19 year old Alice back to a Wonderland she no longer remembers, seeking her help to end the tyrannical rule of the Red Queen. Wasikowska then joined the cast of the indie comedy The Kids Are All Right, playing the daughter of a same-sex couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who, together with her brother, sets out to find their biological father. She then signed on to play the female lead in an untitled Gus Van Sant project. Cary Fukunaga has confirmed that Wasikowska will portray the titular Jane Eyre in his adaptation of the classic novel.
Filmography 2004-2005 All Saints; Sins of the Mothers; Out on a Limb; 2006 Suburban Mayhem; Lens Love Story; 2007 Rogue; September; Cosette ;Skin; 2008 I Love Sarah Jane; In Treatment; Summer Breaks; Defiance; 2009 That Evening Sun; Amelia (playing Elinor Smith); 2010 The Kids Are All Right; Alice in Wonderland (playing Alice Kingsley) 2011 (pre-production) Untitled Gus Van Sant project; Jane Eyre (playing Jane Eyre)
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
This article uses mainly material from the Wikipedia article "Mia Wasikowska" licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. :
Wikipedia
supplemented with information included in:
Mia Wasikowska Source
Pictures
Variety
Return to home page:
Prominent Poles
