Andrew Lee Potts

Andrew-Lee Potts wasn’t a stranger to “Alice in Wonderland” when he agreed to star in Syfy’s adaptation, called “Alice.”

“The first time I ever learned about the story was when I was 10 years old and appeared in ‘Alice: The Musical’ at the Edinburgh Festival,” the British actor said in an exclusive interview, laughing. “I was dressed as a crow.”

He definitely has a better part in “Alice,” the too-long-at-four-hours movie that airs at 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday. He plays a twist on the Mad Hatter, simply known as Hatter, an opportunistic resistance fighter in an even stranger Wonderland than what exists in the children’s classic.

“He’s very different to the original Lewis Carroll version, really. He’s got so many emotions flying around him with what we’ve done with him,” a cheerful Potts told me. “He still wears a hat, though.”

Hatter’s hat may be the only thing that’s truly recognizable in “Alice.” Writer/director Nick Willing tells the story of Alice Hamilton (Caterina Scorsone), a 20-something martial arts instructor who jumps to the other side of a looking glass in search of her boyfriend, Jack (Phillip Winchester).

Alice convinces Hatter and the White Knight (Matt Frewer) to help her on her quest, which brings her face-to-face with the evil Queen of Hearts (Kathy Bates), who has addicted her Wonderland subject to the stolen emotions of kidnapped humans.

And that’s only the beginning of the oddities, all of which Potts said he had a ball experiencing. The actor, who plays Connor Temple in the BBC America series “Primeval,” talked about learning hat tricks, working with his famous co-stars and how Willing and Scorsone are full of it. (I’ll have more from Potts on the return of “Primeval” later.)

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