All Things Alice: Interview With Chad Evett

As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a Podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author that draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration. The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”

For this week’s conversation it is my pleasure to have Chad Evett join me. Read on to explore a sampling of our conversation and check out the series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview. For the full transcript with exclusive content, join our private Circle community.


FB:

I remember the stories that you told me and the will that it took to get out here to LA. I deeply admired the fight that you put up to make it and the struggle to find your way to do the work that, as it seemed to me, you felt destined to do. Which is: create amazing costumes and work with super-talented people. That humanity of growth through the fear and the difficulties is somewhat similar to Alice in Wonderland and what Alice goes through. That search for identity. You know, when you’re young and you have dreams of what you think you want to be. Then those get stifled, and another door opens up and there’s another set of dreams. Then there’s obstacles. I thought it was pretty powerful the obstacles you had to overcome.

CE:

Alice is a fascinating piece of literature. For a story that is so straightforward, the amount of analogy you can pull out of it. You mentioned the idea of doors opening and there is a moment in the book where she is literally trapped in a hallway of doors and none of them will open except for this one that she physically cannot get through. Looking at that as a framework, I grew up in an incredibly small town where being a person who is riddled with imagination, you spend a lot of time creating a reality of your own. Which also lends itself to the idea of Alice. As you get older the people around you start to lose their magic. For a lot of grown-ups, they forget. Rohl Dahl has spoken at length about what it is like for most adults to forget what it was like to be a child. For those few of us who retain the magic, that presents a series of challenges of trying to deal with reality.

FB:

That is what Lewis Carroll was writing about too right? There was part of his writing about the idea that adults lose that childhood imagination. That ability to see through a child's eyes. He was making fun of adults so we could look back and see how powerful those childhood eyes can be.

CE:

It’s interesting. You look at the way kids behave from the adult perspective, and you think, “Oh they’re so small and ridiculous.” But children look at grown-ups and think, “Oh, they’re so big and ridiculous.” It’s latching onto a piece of that insanity and finding a way to harness yourself to it and then make it work.

In the image, Chad Evett, dressed as the Mad Hatter, and Frank Beddor, a man in a casual outfit, are standing next to each other, discussing something intently.

FB:

Let’s talk about working together. We did a lot of fun things. I mean you are an expert promoter, by the way. It wasn’t just the costumes. It’s like, “Okay, how are we going to promote stuff?” And you dressed up as Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter and took my books and wrapped them in these beautiful presentations and you went to Comic-Con and books stores and gave them to the buyers in hopes that they would buy the books and sell the books. You’re so brave about going right out into public. I mean Comic-Con is one thing where everyone else is dressing up in cosplay. But you go and cosplay in the middle of the afternoon. It’s like, “Man this guy’s ballsy.”

CE:

Well, it’s weird, we’re in the middle of entertainment central and then you do something entertaining, and people clutch their pearls. They’re confused and they don’t know what’s going on. We live in the land where movies are made and I go out in a costume and people are like, “Oh are you in a play?” Not once have I ever gotten, “Oh, are you on set, did you sneak away, are you on break?” No, the idea of that is such a novelty and it’s so foreign. At the end of the day, I’ve been cursed my entire existence with being surrounded by people, who in my opinion, don’t do things big enough. One of my favorite quotes is, “Reasonable people are not the ones that change the world.” You only change the world by being unreasonable. Because if you’re reasonable you’re going to deal with what is going on but if you’re unreasonable you’re going to want to change it.

FB:

We had that amazing connection through Alice and then the idea of creativity and wanting to escape. I was in a small town as well. It didn’t seem like I could do the things that I wanted to do. I couldn’t create. I needed a bigger canvas, it felt so stifling. I think I saw that in you as well.

CE:

There’s this notion in part of the book of taking a minimal space but making it feel bigger. By extension, how could we take these big ideas, make them smaller but keep the idea of the size. That was where you mentioned me taking your books around and creating presentations. I thought about this idea of cross-world promotion. Between Wonderland and our world. If you were to send something from Wonderland here. Through the Crystal Continuum. What would it look like when it got spat out the other end? For those of you listening. We made these wooden crates that were packed full of straw and bits of paper. The books were packed into them, but they weren’t just books. There were bottles of caterpillar silk and bits of—

The items in the image evoke the curious and playful spirit of Alice in Wonderland, with intricately designed bottles and letters that seem to hold secrets waiting to be unlocked.

FB:

There was the “Drink Me” the blue and the red.

A Looking Glass Wars Loot Crate sits partially open with its magical contents waiting to be exposed

CE:

There were Queen Redd’s roses. Sewing kits, we did sewing kits from the Millinery. We did Victorian sewing kits. Then we nailed them shut with coffin nails. At the time, Loot Crate was really big. I went to Loot Crate dressed as the Hatter and I walked in like I owned the place. Carrying this wooden crate that had been antiqued and beaten up and it was covered in travel stickers. All of the travel stickers were locations that were relevant to Hatter Madigan’s journey throughout his story, Alice’s story, places in London. Stuff like that. I handed it to the head of Loot Crate, and he looked at it and he spent forty minutes trying to find a hammer so he could get it open. By making it difficult for them, by making them go out of their way, it sticks in the memory. It’s not just, “Oh I got a bag full of stuff.” And it gets put into the corner and forgotten, like so many Comic-Con promotions. No, it’s a legit wooden crate. For two or three years after that, whenever he would post a selfie in his office the crate was always in the background. It was there, he stuck it in his office, and it stayed there. People don’t do stuff like that, and I don’t understand why. It’s just so fun.

Chad Evett, looking every bit the Mad Hatter in his eccentric attire at Loot Crate HQ

FB:

It’s so thematic. As you were saying, we were trying to make the connection from The Looking Glass Wars where there are two worlds that you can go back and forth. That this came as a gift to our world, and you were gifting it and you were the messenger. You also did, when we were promoting, Hatter Madigan: Ghost in the Hat Box. You created those hat boxes where you tied a ribbon and when you took off the top, the book was pulled out of that.

In the image, the cover of Frank Beddor's book "Hatter Madigan: The Ghost in the Hatbox" is prominently displayed. The book features a striking image of a man in a top hat and long coat, holding a sword and looking determined. The background is a moody and mysterious blend of dark blues and grays, with an ethereal light shining behind the figure. The title of the book is written in bold, stylized lettering that adds to the overall sense of intrigue and danger. Overall, the image captures the adventurous and otherworldly spirit of the Hatter Madigan character, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the exciting story that awaits within the pages of the book.
Ghost in the Hatbox Original packaging highlights the special edition of hatter madigan from frank beddor

CE:

I forgot about that! It was inspired by a Chinese puzzle box. When you open the hatbox, and you lifted the provided handle it lifted the book up. If you left it in the box, they’re not going to be inspired to pull it out and look at it. It will get put somewhere. I thought, “I’ll be damned if they’re not going to see this entire book.” Not only that but the cover. The cover of Ghost in the Hat Box, with young Hatter, fighting the big Jabberwock and it’s all fractal-ey and pixelated. It’s such a beautiful image. It’s so beautiful. 

FB:

Yeah! Let's not forget the most popular character in my book. The Mad Hatter as Hatter Madigan. You took good care of him. Because the coat that you put together, it’s just amazing. Then the hat. You found a guy who could actually create the blades. It was real. The blades would come out, the hat would collapse. That became an amazing prop.

The image features Chad Evett, dressed as the iconic Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, in a playful and whimsical pose that captures the character's mischievous spirit.

CE:

You presented me with that beautiful piece of concept art of Hatter on the streets of New York and it's windswept and he’s mid hat throw. Translating that into a real costume was extremely difficult because a lot of times when concept designers they’re not creating it thinking, “This is wool, this is silk, this is polyester.” They’re not thinking in those terms. They are thinking of what suits the character. Which is exactly how costume designers think. Looking at that image and thinking, “How am I going to do this?” I remember the waistcoat, his vest, had this beautiful, really intricate pattern on it. I remember thinking, “How am I going to execute that?” The way that I did it, is that I took sheets of red faux leather that had a Victorian wallpaper design in it. Then I hand etched it with a wood burner. Then I backed it with a layer of satin. Then his coat had metal fittings and it had all this water damage. This whole thing was made to be somewhat to be permanently wrinkled. Because he’s always jumping in and out of puddles. The idea of him having residual water damage was really important.

In this photo, Chad Evett channels the eccentric style and quirky demeanor of the Mad Hatter with his colorful outfit, oversized hat, and whimsical accessories.

CE:

Then that hat, the person who made that hat, an associate of mine by the name of Igor Pinsky. Who is the probably the most brilliant prop maker I have ever met, apart from Adam Savage. I called him up and I said, “I need a top hat that can collapse, and I need blades to come out of the brim so that it can be thrown as a weapon.” And there was a pause on the other end of the line, and he just goes, “Uh huh.” And he goes, “How soon do you need this?” And I believe that was January and I said, “We just need it by the summer for Comic-Con if we can figure that out.” And I don’t know how he did it. He found an antique collapsible top hat. There was a period in time where you couldn’t wear a top hat at the opera. So, they made them collapsible, you would collapse then you’d slide it into a shelf under your seat. He found one that was in terrible condition, but the mechanics were intact. He took that and he devised this gear system where there’s this little tiny dial on the side of the brim and you slide it with your thumb and four blades that were chromed. These chromed plastic blades would slide out. When he and I were talking about what it needed to be.

In the photo, the a shiny chrome blade for the Hatter Madigan Hat sits unassembled on a blue surface, etched with the Hatter logo
In the photo the disassembled mechanisms of the Hatter Madigan hat sit on a table with blades and collapsing mechanism exposed.

CE:

I think Hatter really needs to embody all of the suits of a card deck. So, diamonds and hearts and clubs and whatnot are intrinsically woven into every element of Hatter Madigan’s costume. His boots, his big boot covers have hearts and clubs and diamonds and spades in them. His wrist guard with the blade that comes out. It has functioning gears on it, but the gears are part of clubs and things like that. Then the hat blades had the same thing. The idea that the Millenary creates bodyguards and assassins for the royal families of Wonderland. All of them were reflected in that design. I don’t know how he did it. His brain works on a frequency that if you were to listen to it, I’m sure would sound like old-school dial-up. Even though he has a voracious intellect. Just brilliant, absolutely brilliant. One of the top three scariest men currently living. He built that hat, and I will never forget when I brought it to you. I said, “Okay Frank look at this.” And I collapsed it and the blades popped out and you just stared at it. It was as if this thing you had created in a book that you never thought you would see in real life had somehow broken through the veil and was now in front of you.

In the photo Hatter Madigan's chest armor for his costume is cinematically lit from below as it sits on a mannequin.

FB:

It was a spectacular moment.

CE:

So beautiful. On The View, when Brandon, the actor who portrayed Hatter, deployed the hat on camera-- it just chef’s kiss.

The Mad Hatter, brought to life by Chad Evett's costume and makeup, is conferring with Frank Beddor,and others on the set of The View with Whoopi Goldberg.

FB:

He did a fantastic job. As he moved towards the audience, kind of towards camera, and the hat opens up, that was very dramatic. We shared that experience with The View and Whoopi Goldberg. She is a big Alice in Wonderland fan. She loves all things Alice, and I did this, as you might remember, this Kickstarter campaign, and one of the things you could purchase for $500 is you could become a character in the book. Your likeness. She bought it for $500 but she used her real name which is Karen Johnson. So, I had no idea who it was. I kept saying, “Hey Karen, can you send me a picture? I can’t draw something without a picture.” Finally, she sent the picture. I go, “Wait a minute, you’re Whoopi Goldberg?” She goes, “I’m a huge fan of yours.” Then in New York Comic-Con, I was meant to go meet her and we organized it, and a friend was filming it before I showed up and she goes, “I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous I might break out in tears.” And I’m walking up going, “What? What is Whoopi? Is she talking about me?” And sure enough, we hugged, we kibbutz, and we had fun. Then off camera, she said, “Hey, what do you need? I want to do something with you. Maybe we do like an animated film, or we could do something? And I said, “How about I come on your show?” And she was like,” Oh yeah, I can definitely do that.” And I knew she was a big fan of cosplay. For the listeners to know, she became a character. The Queen of Clubs in the book. Then she invited me to come onto The View. To promote the young Hatter book series. Which was Ghost in the Hatbox. To reveal the cover art but then the secret weapon was you guys. To bring the characters to life and I made a joke about that on the show about, “when you write something for twenty years, they follow you around. But I remembered, it was so much fun. Your enthusiasm and excitement, then what you built for her. How you built that costume, so she had the representation of the Queen of Clubs. Then you built those shoes. Then you wrote her a letter, which I have somewhere. And it goes on and on and on.

Drawing of a costume for the Queen of Clubs by Chad Evett highlights a head piece and gown in black and turquoise.
Queen of Clubs cosplay outfit by Chad Evett features a model dressed in black and turquoise with a headpiece sporting the infamous club symbol.

CE:

I’m not surprised in the slightest that that is what she said to you when she met you because she did the same thing to me when we were backstage. When we were backstage after filming, and you introduced us. She looked at me and said, “You made all of these?” I said, “Yeah, I did all of this.” She took my hand and she said, “I will wear anything you send me because we need to make you a designer.” And I thought well that’s just the greatest thing ever. Her entire persona and aura is one of giving and one of reciprocity. For her to play the Queen of Clubs and embody the idea of a person working toward the greater good and working with certain great thinkers and stuff like that. It’s totally on-brand for Whoopi. When she looks at you over the top of her glasses, you know you’re seen. I love Whoopi she’s such a delight. 

FB:

She had the shoes on, you made those shoes for her. That was a highlight.

Frank Beddor holds custom shoes made for Whoopi Goldberg, made by Chad Evett in black and light blue.

CE:

Those shoes were made by American Duchess. They were a black French court shoes that I then put embroidery and crystals and beadwork. I went out and found club-shaped silver cabochons and put them all together and blinged them up. I specifically went with American Duchess because they have a last of her foot. Because they have made her shoes before. So, by working with them, I was able to skip a lot of difficult steps because I knew the shoes would fit, I knew they were comfortable, I knew she liked them. That was why I went in that direction. Her shoe collection is nuts. I remember being in the office for a couple months after we sent her the shoes and every day, Lucas and I would put on The View. And we were like, “Is he wearing the shoes today? Is she wearing the shoes today? Is she wearing the shoes today?” I will never forget the first time she wore them. She walked out and there was a quick shot of them, and I completely lost my mind.

FB:

That’s a really great example of your dedication, which leads into one of the reasons that I thought, well actually I knew, you would do a great job on Redd’s costume. Because it’s complicated. It’s based on a piece of concept art, which is there behind you. With the flesh-eating roses. It needed to feel organic from nature, but it had to be wearable. You came up with a beautiful costume and the color shimmered. Those different reds depending on the lighting. It worked across all sorts of different environments. The person that you found to wear it she just had that, what was her name?

CE:

Sonya, Sonya Wheeler.

FB:

She was so great. The way her body moved when she was walking through Comic-Con in that dress. She owned it but I think she owned it and I think that I loved it so much was because it was spot-on, perfect image. What you pulled it from, Vance Kovacs was the concept artist and then I used that for my cover art for Seeing Redd. So, it was really important that you hit it out of the park, and you certainly did.

Queen Redd cosplay designed by Chad Evett features a model with red hair and details like a killer flower, metal guarded gloves, and black feathers for her hair.

CE:

The interesting thing about Redd’s outfit. When you look at the way she is in the book and when you look at the concept art, it’s organic. The dress needed to feel dangerous, it needed to be beautiful, it had to move a certain way. The one that I built for you I based very loosely off of an Alexander McQueen dress that was featured in a book called Savage Beauty. The reason why I went that direction was because, give me two words that describe Redd better than savage beauty. I don’t think there are any. The dress was done in layers and layers and layers of this crepe net lamé. That was veiny and it was mossy. Stringing it together in a way where it didn’t look worn. Building the clusters of the roses and all the roses on it were silk. Their teeth were glow-in-the-dark Sculpey. Should she ever go near a backlight they would glow dangerously. It was very much in the idea of it being a beautiful prototype. Ideally what I would love to do, and I daydream about this, is I would love to build an animatronic variant where the roses open and close.

FB:

It was really remarkable. Also, she spray-painted part of the costume, right? We had the two versions. And you did both versions. One was “PG13” and one was “R”.

A wide shot Queen Redd cosplay designed by Chad Evett features a model with red hair and details like a killer flower, metal guarded gloves, and black feathers for her hair.

CE:

One was PG13 and one was R. So, the PG13 one was a leather bustier top that was very low cut. That thing was covered in jeweled rose appliques. I took a rasp and I kind of shredded them and worked them back over themselves so that her bodice felt like an overgrown garden. It kind of lent itself. The skirt has openings, it’s kind of asymmetrical at the top and we tried to make the bodice fit into that. That thing is like a piece of armor, you can put it down and it will stand up. It’s rigid it’s full of boning. The R version, which was the one that Sonya really pushed to do, she really wanted to do it. We makeup-ed pasties basically, we put these silicone covers onto her bosom that negated definition and then airbrushed the entire costume onto her. So, the red of the gown hit her waist then it turned into this black scaly texture that went up her torso and kind of ended around the top of her body. She looked like a malevolent chess piece. She didn’t walk through Comic-Con, she slithered.

FB:

That was my favorite image that Vance did, the “R version” so to speak, and the publisher nixed it. They said it was too provocative. In the image, let alone what Sonya looked like.

Queen Redd cosplay designed by Chad Evett features a model with red hair and details like a killer flower, metal guarded gloves, and black feathers for her hair removes her top to show a body paint undergarment.

CE:

How Victorian of them. Beauty is a really interesting concept. It’s so subjective, right? I think a lot of people would universally agree that beauty is a thing that is not only assumed it is also implied. Most people when they cosplay it’s because they are looking at an element of the character and a piece of them is saying, “I want to be that.” In some degree. When it comes to me being the Johnny Depp Hatter. The Mad hatter has always been one of my absolute favorite characters for whatever reason. I’ve been dressing up for him for Halloween since I was a child.

FB:

What is the reason? What do you think the reason is?

In this image, Chad Evett, sporting a whimsical Mad Hatter outfit, is seen looking deep in thought, suggesting that he is working on something challenging.

CE:

I don’t know. I am attracted to top hats. I love the idea of high tea. I think there is an unbridled element to him. When you read the book, he can stop time. The thing about the book is that people think that the tea party is his, it’s not. The tea party is the March Hares. The Hatter is a guest who showed up and never left and that speaks to me on a deep molecular level. This party crasher that won’t go away. It’s so hard to put a finger on it. It’s so difficult because if you ask someone who cosplays a Disney princess, “Why did you want to be that princess?” They will begin to describe elements of the character's personality, but it always will end with, “And also she has a beautiful dress.” Or if you ask someone why they want to be Bella Lugosi’s Dracula, “Well his suit is so beautiful.” It always kind of comes down to, people are born naked everything else is cosplay.

FB:

Well, that’s very quotable. So, we had Hatter and Redd, we had the Queen of Clubs and then let’s not forget was Bibwit Harte.

CE:

Oh! Yes! Played by Richard-Lael Lillard!

FB:

I think we’re going to have to do another podcast with you and Richie playing Bibwit. I just think we need to have a conversation. I mean Bibwit Harte is an anagram of White Rabbit and Richard seems to be able to embody both at the same time.

Cosplay as Bibwit Harte from the Looking Glass Wars, features a stunning design take by Chad Evett. An opulent older man sits on a park bench in the sun, with rings, elegant fabrics, and rounded glasses.

CE:

You know, we recently lost Leslie Jordan, who we interacted with on the set of Conman. There was one day when all of the characters were there. You had Hatter, Alice, Redd, Bibwit, me as Dodge and everyone was there. Richard Lillard was sitting in a chair in the lobby of that bizarre hotel they were filming at. That place made no sense.

Chad Evett and a group of characters dressed in Looking Glass Wars costumes on the set of ConMan, a Syfy original series produced by Redbear Films.

FB:

That was Industry Hills.

CE:

There’s all these wealthy people with their noses in the air. I’m just like, “Why are you here?” He was sitting in a chair and Beverly Leslie approached him. Richard Lillard was reading one of his prop books that he brought with him, and I will never forget the look. He had big fake eyebrows on, and he just looked at Leslie Jordan and he just went… And gave him this, “You’re talking to me?” And it was so Bibwit of him to do that. I wish there was a recording of the two of them interacting because talk about quick-witted. The two of them.

FB:

Because this is a podcast about all things Alice and the burning question is, “What is it about Alice that has allowed Alice to exist for now one-hundred and fifty-seven years?” What say you?

CE:

Oh my goodness. At the very beginning of this conversation, we touched on this idea that it’s a very linear straightforward story but within it, one can pull many things out of it. Before we started recording you and I were discussing how, for some reason at this time of year a lot of people begin to look at their lives and begin to look at the bizarre chaos that is life. Alice is a character that is existing within chaos. She is finding a way through it; she is figuring out who she is through process of elimination. She becomes, if you’ll pardon the expression, she almost becomes a looking glass through which we can view ourselves. She is constantly presented with situations that nothing in her life has prepared her to deal with. We as human beings are experiencing the same things on a nearly daily basis. Life is becoming more fictional the longer it goes nowadays. That’s the enduring quality, subconsciously we are able to see ourselves within her. We are able to recognize the scared Victorian child who is being repressed. Seeking whimsy inside of ourselves. Whatever that means to you. I think that’s the appeal. It has been reimagined so many times because it so perfectly lends itself to do that. That is why I think it has endured because so many people can look at it.


For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, read our blog or subscribe to our podcast!

All Things Alice: Interview with David Sexton

As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a Podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author that draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration. The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”

For this week’s conversation it is my pleasure to have David Sexton join me. Read on to explore a sampling of our conversation and check out the series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview. For the full transcript with exclusive content, join our private Circle community.


FB:

I’m so excited to learn about you and where some of the creativity came from. How you take my reimagining and reimagine it again. I really couldn’t keep up. There is stuff that you created and artwork that you did that I was like, “When did he do that? Why didn’t we finish that project?”

DS:

Why did he do that?”-- that’s a valid question!

FB:

Right, remember you did that “Kingdom of Cards” which was going to be a game idea and you pitched it to me, then you did all these characters, and you were doing different spellings of the clubs and you had spelled Alyss as “Alyza.” I was like I can’t keep up with him. He’s changing everything much too fast. You have the art, you have the world creation, the magic, some of the science. We’ve talked about musicals; you worked on the musical with me. Take us back to David the kid and what was going on in that mind of yours. Where did you put all the energy?

king krewel and queen ogress as part of the evil klubs in kingdom of cards
animation from kingdom of cards depicting the evil spadez

DS:

I’m much like I am today. I really haven’t changed much. We moved around a lot when I was a kid. My dad had a job as a turnaround man. He would go into a failing business and restructure it and fire the deadwood. So, we would move every year of my life. I can remember up until I was in high school, we moved every year.

FB:

Wait a second, that’s a really particular financial mind that your dad had but your mind is just firing creatively constantly.

DS:

My reality was constantly changing, so the only constant was my imagination. I learned to tell myself my own stories and to create characters in my head and do all that stuff when I was a kid. That was consistent, imagination was foundational and felt like a safe place for me. You know? My internal world was comforting and so I invested in that. I feel like I still do, I still get a lot of joy from inner journeys.

FB:

Did we meet at a Comic-Con?

DS:

Yes, I had read The Looking Glass Wars, I’ve always loved takes on traditional fantasy. I love variations on Wizard of Oz. I’m always curious to see someone deconstruct an archetypal fairy tale or fantasy. I was drawn to Looking Glass Wars and I read it and I thought it was amazing and I was actually at Comic-Con because Marvel was doing my miniseries, Mystic Arcana.

FB:

That’s right.

DS:

I was going around sharing the book with everybody, introducing myself and I came to your booth, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, Looking Glass Wars! Is Frank Beddor here?” And you, who I was talking to, sort of opened your arms like a magician revealing your trick and you were like, “I, am Frank Beddor.”

FB:

Oh, come on.

DS:

That’s how I remember it. I think we immediately connected on the “explorers in imagination” wavelength. That was the beginning of our friendship.

FB:

In going back and seeing some of these sketches you’ve done over the years—I rediscovered your “Alyza”, she has super cool contemporary boots, she’s got a wicked haircut, she’s got bangs. She had a real fantasy, goth, 90’s vibe.

color animation of alyza a mashup character with david sexton

DS:

Oh yes, I remember this now. I think I was mashing up Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Somehow, she was connecting to Oz and Alice.

FB:

We should actually do that though.

DS:

I would love that.

FB:

We should do a story of those two. I mean the cross-pollination of that.

DS:

Exactly, when we were talking about “when did I discover Alice”, I remember Wizard of Oz and Alice coming into my conciseness at the same time. The idea of these tenacious female protagonists, thrust into these completely alien environments but refusing to let it overwhelm them.

FB:

Refusing to surrender, right.

FB:

What was your first experience with Alice in Wonderland and with the Wizard of Oz? Do you recall?

DS:

Oh gosh, I don’t know that I remember. I’m a visual person, I love reading and everything, but I do remember Alice's illustrations and being intrigued by that. I’m sure my first encounter with the Wizard of Oz is probably the movie.

FB:

Yeah, me too.

DS:

I don’t know if I remember the Disney animated Alice movie. I actually sort of remember the first time I saw it I was like, “I don’t like it.” I think I already had Alice in my head, and I didn’t think it succeeded. But Wizard of Oz definitely was the stuff, you know.

FB:

That movie I saw when I was young. I saw the movie when I was really young, and I remember being terrified of those monkeys. I created the Seekers in the Looking Glass Wars because I wanted to scare some other kid.

DS:

Yeah, and your books have some definite scariness in them. One of my favorite things that I think of as a thing I learned from Frank Beddor. You open the book in the most harrowing, hair-raising, dangerous moment possible. It’s always like the first chapter. Then you flash back.

FB:

Because I really wanted those thrills that I had from the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz. That was so creepy.

DS:

I think the challenge of Alice, the original books, is that it’s so episodic. The encounters that she has don’t seem to build on each other. They almost interchange. You can move them around in different orders. I think that’s always the challenge of people adapting the book is that you have to create a build to the adventures and the episode. Obviously, you completely reimagined it but it’s what’s wrong with the Disney movie. There’s no climb, it doesn't build.

FB:

That’s what I really tried to do. I tried to take all the books I read as a kid that had the jeopardy and all the stakes and all the obstacles and give Alice obstacles the whole way that we could see her sorting out. That would be the page-turner or cliffhangers at the end of each chapter.

DS:

Also, Hatter Madigan was sort of the breakout character. He was like James Bond with a hat. He’s the action-adventure guy. So, for boys, I think he’s sort of the draw into the story in a lot of ways. It’s that action-adventure side of it. I think Alice is a very relatable protagonist.

FB:

Yeah, she was my favorite character to write because she had that big story arc. Similar to Dorothy.

DS:

There’s something so compelling and interesting about those stories, Alice and Oz, and they do feel like they weaved together in some way.

FB:

Speaking of weaved-- let's just talk about caterpillar thread tech. I just want to lay out the groundwork. Because I’ve been working on The Looking Glass Wars since 2000, quite frankly I get burned out. So, I called you saying, "I got a new book. Hatter Madigan Ghost in the HATBOX. I need some magic, bring me some magic. What do you think?" And you always delivered in spades, excuse the pun.

DS:

I will say that I have always enjoyed collaborating with you and that you are a muse to me. What you’re doing always stimulates thoughts and things inside of me and when I read that book and you were sort of like, “I feel like it needs a little more meh.” So, I was like “oh what if…”

color chart depicting emotions connected to specific colors from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

FB:

A little bit more showbiz

DS:

A bit more pizazz and then we just sort of just wove this idea of thread tech through various parts of it. And you were like “oh this is super cool” and then started incorporating it into the narrative. It was definitely a thing that we did together.

FB:

Where did those ideas come from? Is that just well-honed imagination and or were you riffing off of another idea that you might have had?

line drawing of a character with a large cloak, making hand motions that evoke magic casting from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

DS:

I love magical systems. When I went and pitched my idea to Marvel, I said, “Your science fiction entities are doing fantastically well, but your magic-oriented properties are failing.” Dr. Strange had been started and canceled, started and canceled dozens of times and no one could seem to make that side of the Marvel universe succeed. I said to them “It’s because you have no rules.” Dr. Strange is Deus ex machina every time he arrives. Whatever it is, it’s always the solution. What really good fantasy or magic writers do is they create rules, then subvert them in a clever way. I mean J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter is a great example. She sets up very strict rules about how it works. Then she messes with you and takes you in unexpected ways. But I said, “If there’s no rules, there’s no risk.”

FB:

And there’s no suspension of disbelief.

a milliner line drawing showing a man casting a spell from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

DS:

Exactly, because you really need a lot of parameters to suspend. When I said that to Marvel I was like, “we need to break down how magic works.” So, we created a series and ways of systems for magic in the Marvel universe. That’s something that always floats around in my head, “what are the rules for magic?” And you had dark and light imagination as the bedrock for the imagination rules. So, I thought okay so it’s about light, then you break the spectrum of light into colors and already you had the blue caterpillar, there are already colors connected with caterpillars. So, then what the silk does is it breaks down the power of imagination into a spectrum. What are the components of a spectrum? What do these different colors stand for? What would be important if Alice imagines a tree into being, well what are the different things that make that actually happen? It has to have strength, it has to have durability, it has to have energy. These various things that make imagination into reality. That’s sort of how I worked backward from that.

in the style of davinci a drwaing depicts different parts of the milliner man like his hat heart health and more from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

FB:

Well, you did it fantastic and you made it very simple because you used the colors. Green was for restorative and yellow was for energy and orange was for strength and blue was for imagination. You had this very simple and understandable color chart. But then, to do what you said to subvert the creation was you said, “What if you twist and bind the separate threads?”

DS:

That was like the next level of it.

FB:

Then you used all these terms. It really did create a magic system that was easy for me to take and run with and imbue the characters.

DS:

You had created your own magic system that was the tenant of Looking Glass Wars. With the dark and light imagination. How those affected each other and what the rules were for those. I married that. Which I think is the best collaboration, right? I didn’t try to throw something onto yours, I took what you did, and I said, “oh what if we moved this around a little bit and changed it a little bit”, enough that it makes sense and feels like that new rule system emerged from your rule system.

a line drawing of a woman in a top hat in the looking glass wars universe casting a magic spell with one hand casually from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

FB:

You really showed off your stuff. And it wasn’t just the thread, I remember I called you and said, “I need all the cool hats in the world so I can give my characters names based on hats.”

DS:

Actually, what you said was, “I need more variety in terms of the kinds of people that are populating the Millinery. It seems like it’s all the same, it’s a very vanilla ethnicity.” I was like, “Let's look at hats all over the world, and that gives us a whole different feel of what that character is.” If they’re named whatever from the different hats, and so, that was super fun exploring all that. Then it’s what does that character look like?

FB:

I haven’t done a lot of character sketches on that but you’re right, that would be the lead idea. Wherever that hat is from that’s where the person is from or their backstory. That was amazing. Have you seen any Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland musicals? I know we once spoke of the musical; Wonderland I think it was called.

DS:

Yeah, Frank Wildhorn.

FB:

Yeah, you don’t see a lot of attempts. You see a lot of people doing small theaters or local theaters and they do a play version of it. But a big musical a la Wicked.

DS:

It’s true, I think we can safely say there’s never been a successful version of it a la Wicked. I saw Frank Wildhorn’s, Wonderland. I feel like the less said the better. It didn’t succeed for some of the reasons were talking about. Amazing cast, super talented, music wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t the best. There were moments but he didn’t crack that thing. It never felt like there was a build of tension, there weren’t stakes. It was Alice meets this thing; they do a song.

FB:

Yeah, so episodic again, not going to work.

DS:

Episodic, it’s a trap that people can fall into when they’re adopting that material because the base material is so structured that way.

FB:

How old was Alice in the musical I’m curious?

DS:

She was an adult; I think she was the adult daughter of the original Alice was the conceit of it. So, she was cynical, and I feel like that is what they were trying to get at.

FB:

There also hadn’t been a Wizard of Oz that was successful. There was The Wiz but nothing successful until Gregory Maguire reinvented it because he made it about the stakes between two sisters.

DS:

I would say that actually The Wiz is very successful and Wicked has been successful. I would say there are two huge Broadway hits that were based on the Wizard of Oz material and there’s never been one for Alice in Wonderland. Which is arguably as large an IP and ripe in imagination things. They’re waiting Frank. You can’t stop you have to keep pushing it.

FB:

Which character from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who are you? Who would you pick?

DS:

I feel like I’m an Alice with a Queen of Hearts rising.

FB:

Oh, I think so too, I think a lot of Queen of Hearts rising. You don’t have the evil streak.

full color queen of hartz drawing from discussion with frank beddor and david sexton 2023

DS:

I’m bossy, but I’ll say that Queen of Hearts and Alice both share a clarity of purpose and a tenaciousness, and I feel like Alice is more of the inquisitive side and the Queen of Hearts is sort of the more forceful side but both of them are inside of me.

FB:

What about the Looking Glass Wars? Which character? I think it’s not a character, it’s a thing. The Heart Crystal, the source of imagination. You are the embodiment of the Heart Crystal, that’s Dave Saxton.

DS:

I’m so touched that’s beautiful.

FB:

What is it about Alice and her staying power in pop culture? It’s a two-parter because it’s that and then, what in pop culture has moved you that is Alice-related that people have been inspired? Whether it's in music or a garden or film or T.V. Does anything come to mind?

DS:

Well definitely as we’ve been saying, it’s this quality of someone who refuses to be lost or overwhelmed in overwhelming circumstances. I feel like me personally as part of the LGBTQ community, we all relate to Dorothy and Ozma or Dorothy and Alice. The world is confounding and a little bit hostile and we don’t feel like we necessarily fit in with this crazy world that we’re navigating through but there’s this intention and a purpose that moves us forward. That is so admirable and so meaningful. I think everybody feels that when they look at these protagonists but for me, particularly that feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. Knowing that these rules, these conventions, these societal white picket fence idea about what prosperity and happiness means. They don’t apply to me. I’m in Wonderland and I’m observing these weird rules. That is probably why Alice has maintained a pop culture presence. We always feel the falseness of the pretentious people in power of the world around us. We’re constantly made aware of the falseness of the fairy tale, and we have to see through that and get to the truth. Which is what her goal is.

FB:

I love that, I love what you just said. I think people want some of their truth in our day-to-day life.How amazing is it that Alice is the most quoted literary works behind the Bible and is able to be that flexible to represent? It’s the reason I have this podcast called All Things Alice and it’s the reason I had the powerful imagination of Dave Sexton join for this wonderful conversation.

DS:

Thank you for having me on and allowing me to play in your imagination playground. I always have a great time when I’m there.

FB:

You’re always welcome in my sandbox. Thanks a lot, David Sexton.

DS:

Thank you, Frank Beddor.


For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, read our blog or subscribe to our podcast!

All Things Alice: Interview With Ed Decter

As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a Podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author that draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration. The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”

For this week’s conversation it is my pleasure to have Ed Decter join me. Read on to explore a sampling of our conversation and check out the series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview. For the full transcript with exclusive content, join our private Circle community.


FB:

It’s been a minute since you and I met at a Shakespeare class at UCLA and that is when you told me you were writing— I think it was your first script?

ED:

No, it wasn’t the first one, but it was a spec script that my writing partner at the time John and I decided to write to put out into the marketplace because that was an era where spec scripts sold very well.

FB:

Especially comedies, right?

ED:

Yes. And it all started with Shane Black with Lethal Weapon.

FB:

The movie we’re talking about is There’s Something About Mary. Just tell me, is that true, that you had read an article about somebody who had hired a private detective?

ED:

No, I had heard a story that a man who, just so happened he was gay, had completely lost touch with the person growing up that made him feel comfortable about being gay. This was sort of a  more difficult pre-internet era where everybody wasn’t on Facebook, so he had hired a private investigator to find that person. Also, my writing partner lived at an apartment building that looked out to the bedrooms of these condos of a building or two over. There used to be a, this sounds especially creepy now in the me-too era, there was a woman who would get dressed but would never put down the blinds and we were young guys, un-married, and we would glance over there and we would wonder, “what if this private I was looking for her and would lie to the person who hired them and say, “no I didn’t find her” and then now that he has talked her and sort of stalked her he would know everything about her so he could talk to her very easy and we would have all this info. So that’s where the idea was born.

FB:

Well, it’s been 25 years, this summer will be the anniversary, and you bring up the me-too movement. I wonder, do you think, There’s Something About Mary that could be made today given some of the dialogue that Matt Dylan said in particular about working with retards.

ED:

There’s not a chance that it would be made today. There’s not a chance. But it's kind of great that it came together in that way because it found exactly the right director because those guys are really gregarious but they’re completely not mean spirited.  Therefore they didn’t infuse it with any kind of creepiness.

FB:

Yeah, those guys are very funny, and they had a track record and they’re very charming and they convinced the studio at the end of the day.

ED:

Well, they didn’t convince the studio at the end of the day, meaning before they had shot they were supposed to have taken out everything in the script that we now recognize as funny. The dog going on fire, of course unharmed. The hair gel, the people singing in the trees, I mean they were supposed to take out all of that and they kept saying “yes, yes we’re taking it out” then they started shooting.

FB:

Right, and also, you’re talking about the prequel story when he was in high school with the braces on. That was 25 minutes of the movie and was critical to setting up his character and our sympathy for him. Especially when he got his junk caught in the zipper.

ED:

Yes. I said to Peter at the time, are you going to have Ben, who I think at the time is like 32, play his high school self? And Peter just said, “It’ll be hilarious.” And it was. He had the bad haircut and the braces, it was hilarious. If they didn’t have the street cred of having directed Dumb and Dumber, which made a ton of money, it never would have happened.

FB:

Well, I think that’s a really important point in all creations. When I wrote The Looking Glass Wars, I had an editor on me all the time. I mean I probably had to do 40 drafts and then I was really fighting for the cover art. I had all this great concept art. They were like "No. No, you don’t make a decision on the art." But at the end of the day, the art overwhelmed the choices they came up with, so they chose mine. The great thing about writing books is they really want you to have the voice and they really want you to take over but at the same time there’s all these publishing restraints that are not dissimilar to movie and TV restraints.

ED:

When you wrote the book I got extraordinarily jealous and decided I was going to write some books.

FB:

You’re so competitive.

ED:

I was so competitive, in golf too, and so I decided I was going to write books.

FB:

No, you said “if you can do it anybody can do it”.

ED:

No, no, no. I said, “If Frank is writing books, I’m writing books”. Now I had an advantage that you didn’t have at that time, I had written close to a billion dollars worth of movies at that point. So, she was the opposite, she would tell the copy editor “he uses capitals a lot because he’s a screenwriter and that’s the voice of the book, don’t change it”.

FB:

Wow—I never would have had that. So, how did you enjoy transitioning to directing?

ED:

It’s startling, when you grow up you think, “oh a director really makes all of the decisions and chooses everything” and it’s really not true unless you’re doing an independent movie that you have helped get the financing for. Then you have more of what Scorsese goes through with less budget.

FB:

Right.

ED:

When you work for a studio and you do a first-time movie, you get a lot of, "tomorrow there will be gene Simmons from Kiss in the movie." Then you will say, "well which part is he playing?" "He goes whatever part you write tonight for him."

FB:

Wow.

ED:

Yeah, that kind of thing.

FB:

That does not happen in independent films. On the movie Wicked, to your point. I was producing Wicked and then shortly thereafter Mary. In Wicked we had 2 million dollars, so the director was able to make all of the decisions in concert with what the whole production wanted. On Mary, once they left us alone, the Farrelly brothers shot everything they wanted because we were out of town.

ED:

A really good showrunner friend of mine said that “Movies are war. Television is government.”

FB:

That’s a great analogy.

ED:

Yeah, you can go off and make war and shoot something and literally burn down a town and then go home and have the insurance pay off the town and never go back there. But in television, you’re returning places, if your show is working and you go on for many years, your returning places for many many years.

FB:

Because you do both comedy and drama can we just take a step back to where the writing inspiration came from? To be able to write in these multiple genres whether it's drama or procedural or comedy. How did you find that voice?

ED:

That’s a really good question and I teach this at the AFI. I always say you have to find the part of yourself that connects with a project and different parts of yourself connect with different projects. I created that show Shadow Hunters on freeform and obviously, it's very tough to connect with vampires or werewolves.

FB:

Again another genre, Fantasy.

ED:

Right and that connects to Alice very much and we will talk about that. That one I really could connect to, there was a mother who didn’t tell her daughter how special she was, much in the Harry Potter paradigm, and when she became 18 she started to come into powers that really confused her and then in fact jeopardized her because she didn’t know who she really was. It’s a classic paradigm in all of fantasy but I could relate to a parent protecting their kid so much that they actually hurt them in certain ways because they didn’t give them tools to survive on their own and that was essential to the first season of that show.

FB:

Do you think about it from the character and developing the character first? If you have a novel you have all the plot pieces so then it's about how is it going to work best for television. And if it's a series you’re thinking about the character arc for the whole series.

ED:

Right and sometimes a novel closes itself off and ends and a lot of times you could say, "wow if that didn’t end, if this next thing happened you could start developing it into a series." A lot of times people are disappointed that things aren’t exactly like the novel but they are completely different forms. For instance, if it just so happens that the novel is a first-person story. As soon as you say it’s going to be a tv show it can’t be in first person anymore.

FB:

No.

ED:

That means that you’re moving to some form of third person but you still want to stay very close to that character, but instead of a character thinking five or six things you have to show those things. So, some people get disappointed because when you move away from the first person, you’re losing a lot of that voice of that person’s thinking, that people are so attracted to. But there’s no other way to do it.

FB:

Talk to me about the stakes and the obstacles you’re looking to create especially in a mystery. You have to have a lot of red herrings, but how do you go about teasing out of the novels what you think would be the best obstacle and then therefore stakes that keep escalating from episode to episode?

ED:

Well, you start with the character, with what operates all the time that makes them interesting. Of course if it's in a book it’s already there. You tease out what makes them interesting, what makes them see the world differently, or notice the world from a unique perspective. The classic example is CSI. You and I would see a gunshot victim and that would be really gross for us but in CSI they would say “wait a minute they fell down in this way, therefore, the bullet had to come from here, but there’s no bullet hole there so what could explain that?” Then, there is the mystery. I think all of us are interested in what’s beneath that we see. For instance, Alice going down the rabbit hole. We use Alice in Wonderland terms in every writing session. It’s just part of the vernacular. We say “and this is where we’re really gonna go down the rabbit hole”. Where the detective goes down the rabbit hole, where the detective finds this really gruesome clue and then really really goes down deep and researches that and gets into that world. We also say “what’s on the other side of the looking glass?” and “this is where we see wonderland”. In a fantasy project, for instance, you go, “when this door opens, we see an entire different dimension”.

FB:

So much of it comes from a book that was written 157 years ago. It’s sort of remarkable.

ED:

In current-day fantasy stuff everybody goes “you should give JK Rowling 10% of your money” But she didn’t create the fantasy story. One of the original fantasy stories was Alice in Wonderland. The idea that Alice didn’t know precisely who she was which is identity, then she goes down the rabbit hole and then she encountered a wonderland you know. We use it in writer's rooms all of the time.

FB:

What’s interesting about the reference to Alice these days is that his books have been adapted into 197 languages like twice Harry Potter so if anything, Rowling should be giving money to the Lewis Carroll estate. Obviously, I’ve been playing in the Alice universe for a long time, but I wanted to ask you a question about that because in Alice in Wonderland, she falls down the rabbit hole and the adventure in the book is very episodic. It's not always like she has a lot of agency but she does have agency she does stand up for the injustices but she is trying to figure out who she is and I think that question is universal. Who am I? Today? Who will I be next year?

ED:

I mean generally, fantasy is about identity. Even modern-day ones, what’s the one where the guy has two parts of his life, and they're completely separate and he goes to work--?

FB:

Oh, Severance, Ben Stiller’s show!

ED:

Yes! We come back to Ben Stiller, the reason why I have my house. If you think about it, he doesn't really know who he is because part of him has been severed. So that’s an identity thing and that’s a fantasy thing but it doesn't look like Alice in Wonderland, it doesn't look like Shadow Hunters or like the Harry Potter series.

FB:

I think it’s just a powerful metaphor. What I discovered with Alice is not only is it so deeply seeded in culture, it’s referenced across all mediums. However, it hasn’t been adapted into as many TV shows as the Wizard of Oz because it’s episodic. So, one of the things that I was thinking about was how do you change that so the identity part of it is strong? So that she has a mission to go on. When you and I got together and put a writer's room together to break out The Looking Glass Wars to figure out the best strategy to turn it into a TV show— one of the things that you’re quick to point out from a casting standpoint was that we want Alice as the 20-year-old, as the adult Alice to follow. Because if you get so invested in the young Alice and then you do five or six episodes and then she’s gone that can be a bump with the viewers.

ED:

The only time I’ve seen that work slightly, in a modified version of that recently, was the Queen's Gambit. I mean that was really bold that they had the first episode with the young actress without your big star except in the very opening of the show.

FB:

What was your experience as a child or as a young adult with Alice in Wonderland. How did you first come to Alice?

ED:

Probably like everyone did. You would hear these phrases that everyone used, then you read the book. What I loved most in engaging with Alice was when you wrote the Looking Glass Wars and to me, that was like what Wicked did to the Wizard of Oz. A whole new look and a new point of view on that story. For me, that got me more into Alice than the original story because like you said it's very episodic and whimsical, beautifully written, but what I liked about the Looking Glass Wars was exactly what you were just describing. There is a drive to it and a mission to the whole thing and oppositions that you’ve set up that are so much bigger than in Alice in Wonderland. You have these wonderful Card Soldiers and Redd, and everybody built out so that you say to yourself “ah, this is a universe”. We can traverse this universe and its infinite. The coolest thing we were talking about when we were working on the series together was that you could do a flashback episode to hundreds of years before. To the whole generation before Queen Redd. There’s all that, and then what’s to become of the split between Wonderland and the real world.

FB:

Yeah and I felt like that was the most unique aspect of it, is Wonderland coming up through the rabbit hole. Because the premise is that Lewis Carrol changed the story, it suggests there’s a real story and that’s infinite. You can just continue to grow. One of the things you did in the room, and I wonder if this is something you do in every room, is you created zones. Could you talk about what that means in creating zones for taking a novel or a work to world creation, how do you see that?

ED:

First of all, every show has world creation whether or not it’s just taking place in our normal everyday lives or it's taking place in something unbelievably fantastic like Wonderland. What we're talking about with zones in television is that when you’re doing a series and you want that series to run a long time you want to have different areas to go to where there’s big areas of story. If you just have a single lead in a drama series, that person will burn out all the story in a couple of episodes. As that person meets their family of the show. Whether it's their real family or just the characters that they meet in the show. For instance, in yours, you want to be able to cut to Hatter Madigan and his whole story like, then you want to be able to cut to Queen Redd and what’s going on with her and is she looking for Alice. Then if she sends the Cat to go look for Alice, you want to be able to follow the Cat. Then you want to be able to follow Hatter Madigan’s brother. The shows that people really love, if you think about it, those are zones of story that are very rich and very powerful and can sustain a whole episode. So when you’re world-building in something complex and large like Looking Glass Wars you want to establish all these different areas that you can go to so that the audience is going, “Oh I want to see the conclusion of this story, now we’re over here.” And then “Oh my god what’s happening here?” You want to start a lot of fires.

FB:

I’m thinking about the Looking Glass Wars season one a little bit differently now. What do you think about the way that they set that up Queen’s Gambit? Is that possible for the Looking Glass Wars? Because the premise of Alice meeting Lewis Carroll and seeing him change her story—that’s the high concept moment which everybody can recognize as, "oh this is why this is different." This is why this should exist. Especially in culture now where facts are not facts, what’s real and what’s fantasy. It feels thematically like this is an interesting spot but you have to spend some time with her as a young girl and meeting Lewis Carroll and seeing how Lewis Carroll gets it wrong and how it affects her. That would change the idea that we started with which was she was an unreliable narrator.

ED:

In fact, Lewis Carrol was the unreliable narrator.

FB:

Exactly. I’m wondering if you were choosing between those two, having the high concept and getting it out early vs. holding back and using the unreliable narrator with trust that we can flashback to the coup later and to a reveal that Lewis Carroll did in fact get it wrong. What is your take today?

ED:

Well, a lot of it has to do with sales. Meaning that, and it depends who you are. The Queen's Gambit was really a risky thing to do because you have a big star, she wasn’t a big star at the time but she became a huge star, Anya Taylor Joy. Now story-wise, you’re absolutely right, it would be great to spend time with Alice, especially like in a first episode, and do a prequel to the whole series. In the business of television very often they want you to do the series and not the backstory of the series but now the world has been opened up to different ways of telling a story and I could see that the first episode could be. You could go back in time. You could start with the adult Alice that is your star very much like in Queens Gambit and you could flash back to her young life that she barely remembers because she remembers Lewis Carrol's version of her story.

FB:

Exactly and everybody keeps telling her that’s the real story and she’s the muse to that. The pain came from that as a young girl, she pushes away.

ED:

Right.

FB:

Are there other references to Alice in Wonderland that you identify with? Or that you have put together recently?

ED:

I see it in so much in everything.

FB:

In Stranger Things I just saw it, it’s everywhere.

ED:

By the way, this is the paradigm. Monsters inc. Ok, it’s a completely animated movie. It’s in our world, little kids getting scared by monsters, that’s our ground zero or home base. That’s the buy of the movie. Then there’s this whole sequence with all the doors traveling in space. That’s Wonderland.

FB:

Yeah exactly.

ED:

That’s you transported into another world.

FB:

If you were to reimagine a classic for television, like how many times have they done Sherlock Holmes? It’s amazing.

ED:

They just had season two of Enola Holmes.

FB:

And it did fantastic, my daughter loves that show. Is there one out there? Could you do Treasure Island? Anything come to mind in terms of something that you read as a kid that you would be interested in reimagining?

ED:

The first thing that pops to mind is a kids book that I loved. It goes right to the work I’m doing now. When I was young I loved the Encyclopedia Brown books. It was a kid detective, and he was just real knowledgeable about science and all this stuff. He would figure things out. It was a trigger, a gateway drug for all these novels that I read now. I’d remake that with a woman detective.

FB:

Is there a way for us to contextualize this whole conversation? What is it about Alice that resonates with culture as an iconic character, as a fantasy book? The feeling of wanting to escape, to having an identity?

ED:

‘Cause Alice kind of rebels, right?

FB:

She does.

ED:

It’s deep in the genes to want to rebel against authority. Then the other thing is the idea that everything feels in some way that their life is kind of humdrum or mundane. Even people whose lives aren’t humdrum and mundane, to them it’s their lives. There is this sense that, what if there was something else? Like another dimension or something where a whole world opens up. The same guy who said television is a government and movies are war said that when you have a child it’s like an undiscovered country of love.

FB:

Yeah, it’s so true. To wrap this up, let me just ask. What is the most requested piece of advice as a teacher, what do you think inspires the students? What do you think they most often ask?

ED:

They most often ask this, “how do I write something successful?”

FB:

Right.

ED:

Which is not the right question.

FB:

Clearly.

ED:

The right question is, how do I write something that is personal to me? Something that can…

FB:

Can connect?

ED:

Can connect. I call it the bridge and that is really the core of Alice, right? There’s this girl and we sort of understand her life and we see her and then she goes into this other world and we go with her and it's a bridge to another world. If you as a writer can build that bridge and bring people along on a journey that’s what leads to success but it comes from you and it comes from the character. There are a lot of people who think I’m going to create a world and then stick a character into it.

FB:

Yeah that does not work.

ED:

That does not work, and world creation is following a character and then discovering a world.

FB:

If you and I were musical we would take that phrase, a bridge to another world, and we would write a hit song. Thank you so much for joining me today.

ED:

My pleasure.


For the latest updates & news about All Things Alice, read our blog or subscribe to our podcast!