The first official publicity images for Tim Burton’s rendition of “Alice in Wonderland” hit USA Today yesterday, giving you a good look at what to expect when you travel down the rabbit hole once again in March 2010.

The new version will have Alice venturing back to Wonderland 10 years after she left, not remembering anything about this strange and unusual place. It will feature some live action, some CG animation, some motion capture, and 3-D.

Johnny Depp will appear as the Mad Hatter. Helena Bonham Carter will be the Red Queen, and Anne Hathaway and her giant mouth will collaborate together to play the White Queen.

I know that typically any bit of Johnny Depp news gets the ladies pretty excited, but, if you are getting moist with delight over the creepy image of him as the Mad Hatter, then you’ve got problems… serious, serious problems.

Except something dark and creepy and scary, as Wonderland was always intended to be.

[USA Today]

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• Oscar Roundtable with Pitt, Hathaway, Downey Jr.

Newsweek sat down with six of the actors on most everyone’s Oscar shortlist for their 13th annual Oscar Roundtable.

This year’s panel includes Brad Pitt (”The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”), Anne Hathaway (”Rachel Getting Married”), Robert Downey Jr. (”Tropic Thunder”), Mickey Rourke (”The Wrestler”), Frank Langella (”Frost/Nixon”) and Sally Hawkins (”Happy-Go-Lucky”).

Here are a collection of videos and an excerpt of the interview which will be featured in the next issue of Newsweek.

NEWSWEEK: With the Internet, it’s becoming harder for actors to draw the line between public and private. Do any of you guys ever Google yourself?
Pitt: Dear God. No.

Never?
Pitt: Never. First of all, I don’t really know how to operate a computer.

Do you have a BlackBerry?
Pitt: Oh yeah, I have a BlackBerry.

Anne, what about you. Do you Google yourself?
Hathaway: No.

Langella: It’s not a good idea. It can be painful and it can be self-aggrandizing.

Hawkins: What do they say about don’t believe any of it?

Downey: Oh, I love all that s—-, personally. Sorry. I love just it. Because it’s a hoot. Some people overstate their support, like they know you. Other people are busy doing something else and just want to go on this chat site and say some despicable character assassination, which I honestly think they kind of nailed it. I do have that shortcoming. It’s really fun.

Pitt: This publicity machine is out of control. It’s everything we didn’t sign up for. There’s this whole other entity that you get sucked into. You have to go and sell your wares. It’s something I never made my peace with. Somehow you’re not supporting your film if you don’t get out on a show and talk about your personal life. It has nothing to do with why I do this.

Langella: I’m a dinosaur. I never had a publicist until this film, because I had to protect myself—the studio wanted me to do every interview and talk show. I think the greatest thing an actor has is mystery and danger. And you poor guys are being asked to give pieces of yourself. You must fight it every chance you get. The more they know about you personally, the less they believe in you on camera. You want to disappear.

Pitt: But I think it’s impossible to operate fully from that standpoint. David Fincher [director of "Benjamin Button"] has spent five years chiseling away at this thing. I want him to get his day. So there is a strange push and pull.

Hathaway: OK, I have a confession. I lied before when you asked if I Googled myself. I do. I embarrassed by it because I know how terrible it is.

Downey: Wait a minute, should I feel s—-y that I Google myself?

Hathaway: You should feel s—-y about other things, Robert. For a while, it cracked me up. I found a ton of humor in it. But recently it’s changed. There’s a big difference now where information is being reported as news. And I’m very uncomfortable with that. And what you were saying, Brad—and God knows you deal with it worst than anyone—the idea that you blink your eyes and it’s all over the Internet? It’s a strange thing to be part of.

Pitt: I feel for the people who are just getting into the business. It sets the wrong focus.

Downey: I got a story for you. I go to Japan. “Iron Man” is opening there. I’m like, dude, this is my walk of fame. I go there and they go, [he mimics a Japanese accent] “Small problem with your passport, it links up to some incredible criminal activity.” I’m like yeah, yeah, yeah. “You did not make claim of said activity.” I was like, “I got tired.” “We would like to interrogate you.” I was like, “Interrogate? Fine, great.” Six hours later, I’m sitting there in the Japanese interrogation suite. A lady comes out, “So were you in jail or prison?” I go, “Both.” “How long?” “Sixteen months.” “Do you know the name of the first infraction you had in 1995?” I was like, “It’s hard for me to remember because I’ve been arrested so many times.” “We cannot let you enter our country.” They decided later that I can come in to do the press, “But I must please never come to Japan again.” So I’ll wrap this up quickly. We go to the Iron Chef restaurant. They give me the finest Kobe beef, and I am doubled over for yoo-hoo status for the next two days.

Langella: I don’t know what that means.

Downey: I ate a piece of beef that was super-expensive, I got a parasite, and I was yoo-hoo. I was Brown Betty for two days.

Langella: See, he has his own language.

Downey: Then what happens, a Japanese robot shows up on the red carpet. He carries in a 500-pound barrel of sake. I’m going like, I kind of have plans for Christmas, you should keep that away from me. They wanted me to smash the sake cast open with the robotic Iron Man.

Pitt: There’s some wacky humor going on over there. Japan, those toilets, all automated. They fumigate, they spray, they massage.

Hathaway: They compliment!

Langella: Can I ask this side of the table [Hathaway, Pitt, Downey] something? How much influence do the handlers and the notion that your films are making money or not making money have on your choice, because you three are extraordinarily hot. If your film tanks, do you have people around you saying the next thing you do has got to be a moneymaker? Or do you just ignore it completely and say the next thing I do is from my heart?

Pitt: I have nothing to prove anymore. The only thing that’s worth anything is when you explore something that’s interesting. I did a film a couple years ago, “The Assassination of Jesse James,” and it’s on the books as a failure. I loved that movie, I had such a great experience.

Downey: But it’s on the books as a failure.

Hawkins: I can’t believe that. “Jesse James” is phenomenal.

Pitt: Thanks. You’re the other one. My point is, I am absolutely free to follow the things that interest me. I believe if it interests me, there will be a few other people interested as well. To me it comes down to discovery.

Hathaway: My first love was theater, so I always had an exit strategy. If doesn’t work out, I’d be blessed to do theater for the rest of my life. After the experience of “Brokeback” and the experience of “The Devil Wears Prada,” I thought I’m about as famous as I think I’m comfortable with. So if all this disappears, I’m really fine. I set that as my end point. And then “Rachel” came, and then infamy came, so it’s very odd now that I’m much more famous than I thought was possible. At the same time, it feels so temporary and unimportant. I freed myself before any of that happened, to make the projects that I care about. I wish I were a better strategist and see things through and how they were to play. But I’m much more interested in the process of making the film.

Downey: I’m kind of stoked to be sitting here with you all, and it’s good to be me, too, I guess. I grew up in a filmmaking family, and my dad was doing maverick underground independent stuff at the time of Cassavetes, so the Mike Leigh approach was nothing new to me. If your movie made money, you were eyed suspiciously by your peers. But then the counterpoint to that, it became so about the art, things got further and further out, there was no containment for it. That to me was the first death of independent moviemaking. I’ll be on the sets, we’re shooting “Iron Man” and we’re in the desert, and I looked up and there’s a sandstorm, and I just had the ah-ha moment. Gratitude would be the wrong word. But being able to do this is kind of inexplicable. It’s the sense that I’m at my purpose. I’m not very popular about this, and the misses tells me to keep it on the QT, but lately for me, the biggest most commercial generic projects that I’ve done are the most creatively satisfying, and the ones that the audiences respond to. And I jump off and do an indie, and they can’t hit their ass with both hands, it’s 50 monkeys f—ing a football, and then you have to go and pump your kidneys dry in Sundance. What’s next, f—king Shakespeare in the park for the pagans for three months?

Hawkins: I’ve done that!

Hathaway: I like to think of this as an adventure. My mom is an actress, and she’s a good actress and she’s a great singer. The best credit she ever got was a pre-Broadway run of an original show that wound up not going to Broadway. She raised three kids and she’s had a great life. But this is absurd. I’m just happy to know what this feels like.

You know Anne, your mom is on YouTube.
Why is my mother on YouTube?

She’s performing, doing this great song.
Oh my God. I didn’t know! Well, check her out, everybody in NEWSWEEK. She’s really talented.

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It made the news earlier this week when Anne Hathaway broke up with her Italian boyfriend. And good riddance! Raffaello Follieri has been arrested for lying to an investor, saying that he was the chief financial officer of the Vatican. This guy has been doing this sort of sideways sh*t for years. Amazing someone so seemingly beautiful (er, some people think so) and talented as Hathaway would fall for this guy’s crap. Anyhow, police say that because people believed his connections to the Vatican that he was able to purchase properties owned by the Catholic church as huge discounts.

• Paris Hilton is denying reports that she tried to buy a Yorkshire Terrier to use as a prop for a photoshoot she was headed to. Last week it was reported that the heiress strolled into a pet store and wanted to impulsively purchase the dog and was turned down – due to her reputation of owning too many animals and not caring for them properly. She responded to the rumors on her blog, “I read [that I was] walking by some puppies for sale, and demanding that I be given a Yorkie puppy to be an accessory for a photo shoot. I wasn’t looking for a new pet. I wasn’t even at a photo shoot that day. Puppies are not accessories or toys and I love my own pets dearly. I treat them as if they were my children.”
  Hmph. I have always figured this Blind-Item was about the dumb twat . .

• American Idol’s second season winner, Ruben Studdard obtained a marriage license Monday in Birmingham, Alabama.
  Studdard, 29, and girlfriend Surata Zuri McCants, 30, filled out paperwork at the Shelby County Probate Office just before noon on Monday and walked away with their license.
  An eyewitness said, “They looked really happy.”
  No word when the couple plan on marrying, their marriage license is valid for 30 days.

• DMX is one dumb dawg.
  He was arrested in Miami yesterday for driving without a valid driver’s license.
  The moron rapper was arrested last month as well, in Arizona, and was charged with driving with a suspended license and doing 114-mph in a 65-mph zone back in January.
  He obviously didn’t learn anything from it. Three days later he was arrested (also in Arizona) for animal cruelty and felony drug possession charges.

• Larry King’s wife Shawn Southwick King, 48, is currently in rehab for her addiction to painkillers.
  She is King’s sixth wife – the couple have been married for 10 years and have two children.
  A friend of King’s confirmed to Page Six, “Shawn is in rehab for medication issues related to her chronic migraine problem.”

Past Smacks

• Kevin Federline Gives Sons a Happy Birthday
• Spicy Links!
• Tiger Woods Hawaii House? [PICS]
• Scott Ruffalo Was Murdered
• Friday Afternoon Briefs