In 1996, Mara Wilson flicked across the screen for the first time as Matilda in the film of the same name. That was almost 30 years ago now. This is what the actor is doing today.
The movie “Matilda” was released in cinemas on July 28, 1996, and today the US fantasy comedy is on TV – at 8:15 pm on Saturdays. In the film, Mara Wilson plays the role of Matilda Wormwood, who is gifted with telekinetics and was not particularly raised by her parents.
Instead, they don’t even notice their daughter’s talent and send her to the school run by the sad principal Trunchbull (played by Pam Ferris). Morality is tough there, but Matilda uses her skills to teach the evil Trunchbull a lesson.
It is now 28 years since the film was shown in cinemas. The little girl was back then a grown woman. Mara Wilson is now 37 years old. On her Instagram profile, her bio describes herself as: “Writer/actress/may be known to kids and librarians.” Wilson doesn’t spend much time in front of the camera anymore, but she seems to be writing more.
For example, she has her own newsletter that you can subscribe to and has written three books. Her autobiography was published in 2016 “Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girls and Accidental Heroes” published. In the title, she describes her fame as a little girl as accidental, unexpected or even unwanted.
Wilson regularly shares photos with her 250,000 followers on Instagram. She repeatedly refers to her past as the star of “Matilda”, but she is also active as an activist, drawing attention to social injustices or asking for help. On Twitter she calls herself Mara “Get rid of the Nazis” Wilson.
In 2021, she wrote a column for the New York Times titled “The Lies Hollywood Tells About Little Girls.” She reported being sexualized as a child star in the 1990s. “Before I was even 12, there were pictures of me on foot fetishist websites and my pictures were image-edited in child pornography,” she wrote.
Wilson also said she had never been harassed on a film set. “My sexual harassment has always been at the hands of the media and the public.” When she was only six years old, reporters asked her if she would like to have a boyfriend and which actor she found the “sexiest.” “It was sweet when 10-year-olds wrote me letters saying they loved me. It wasn’t when 50-year-old men did that.”
She and her parents consciously decided that she should only accept roles in family films and that she should not wear anything less than a knee-length summer dress. “However, I was already sexual anyway and I hated it.”
In 2016, Mara Wilson came out as bisexual. She went public with this shortly after the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which used to be mainly LGBTQI people. At the time, Wilson shared a tweet with a photo of himself and wrote: “Me in a gay club when I was 18. Looking at it now I’m embarrassed…”
