"[13] At the age of nine, Wasikowska began studying ballet with Jackie Hallahan at the Canberra Dance Development Centre,[14] with hopes of going professional.

[18] Her passion for ballet also waned due to the increasing pressure to achieve physical perfection and her growing dissatisfaction with that world in general, and she quit at the age of fourteen.

[18] At the same time, she had been exposed to European and Australian cinema at an early age, and was particularly moved by Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy and Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career.

[13] Although shy and averse to performing during her school years,[13][19] she was inspired to try to break into acting after seeing Holly Hunter in The Piano and Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence.

She observed quietly on the set; fellow actor Stephen Curry noted, "We didn't hear a peep out of her for three weeks, which earned her the nickname of 'Rowdy'".

[26] She earned critical acclaim for her performance as the troubled teenager treated by psychotherapist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne),[27][28][29] which included praise for her American accent.

[35] Wasikowska played the supporting role of Pamela Choat in the 2009 Southern Gothic independent film That Evening Sun opposite Hal Holbrook.

During the two hours she had to prepare, she watched Coal Miner's Daughter online to quickly learn a Southern accent, and impressed Teems enough to be the only non-American actor in the film.

In July 2008, Wasikowska was cast as the eponymous heroine in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, alongside Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter.

"[26] Wasikowska portrayed a nineteen-year-old Alice returning to Wonderland for the first time in over a decade after falling down a rabbit hole from an unwanted marriage proposal.

Her affinity for the character played a part in her desire for the role, as she had read the Lewis Carroll books as a child and was a fan of Jan Švankmajer's 1988 stop-motion film Alice.

"[40] For Lisa Cholodenko's indie comedy The Kids Are All Right, Wasikowska was cast as Joni, the bookish daughter of a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who was conceived via artificial insemination.

From March to May 2010, Wasikowska filmed Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Jane Eyre, in which she starred as the title character opposite Michael Fassbender as Mr.

'"[20] Due to a scheduling conflict, she had to withdraw from the lead in Julia Leigh's 2011 Australian independent film Sleeping Beauty, and she was replaced by Emily Browning.

[55] On 21 April 2011, Wasikowska was named in the Time 100, a listing of the world's most influential people, which featured a brief essay written by Albert Nobbs co-star Glenn Close.

[57] In December, she was among a group of actors who filmed a series of shorts from The New York Times titled Touch of Evil, which honored the art of cinematic villainy.

[64] In July, she shot Jim Jarmusch's vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive, in which she plays the younger sister of Tilda Swinton's character.

[65][66] Filming of Tracks, director John Curran's adaptation of the Robyn Davidson memoir of the same name, began in October 2012 in Australia, with Wasikowska in the lead role.

Wasikowska made her directorial debut on a segment of The Turning, a collection of short stories by Australian author Tim Winton.

[70] She next played the title role in Sophie Barthes' film adaptation of Madame Bovary,[71] which began shooting on 30 September 2014 in Normandy, France.

[72] Wasikowska replaced Emma Stone in Guillermo del Toro's gothic romance Crimson Peak (2015), where she starred alongside Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain.

[80] In 2018, she appeared in David and Nathan Zellner's black comedy western Damsel, reuniting with her Maps to the Stars co-star Robert Pattinson, and in Nicolas Pesce's psychosexual thriller Piercing, based on Ryū Murakami's 1994 novel of the same name.

Wasikowska's sole release of 2020 was Netflix's The Devil All the Time, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock directed by Antonio Campos.

She was part of an ensemble cast formed by Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Sebastian Stan and previous collaborators Clarke and Pattinson, among others names.

[84] She starred in Robert Connolly's family drama Blueback, alongside Eric Bana, which had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.