Mara Wilson Was ‘Completely Humiliated’ on Her Last Movie Set Before She Quit Acting
Life as a child star is a strange existence. The damaging lows can overshadow the highs of being in the entertainment industry at a young age. Pressure and expectations can put a lot of unhealthy stress on kids, especially young girls who face a different set of standards than their male counterparts. Mara Wilson understands the damage this situation can cause.
Wilson became a well-known name very early in life. But the attention she received only convinced her to quit acting for years. Since her experience, Wilson has resumed performing. Now she’s using her platform to discuss the predatory tactics of those in power in Hollywood.
Wilson starred in some of the biggest family movies of the ’90s
Wilson became interested in acting after seeing her older brother Danny in TV commercials. After booking some ads of her own, she made her movie debut as Natalie Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire. As the second highest-grossing movie of 1993, Wilson’s performance raised her profile in the industry. The next year, she earned the role of Susan Walker in the remake of Miracle on 34th Street.
One of the people impressed by Wilson was Danny DeVito, who cast her as the main character in the 1996 adaptation of Matilda. This role came to define her as a public figure. Wilson received three award nominations and won the YoungStar Award for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film.
In 2018, Wilson wrote a piece for Vanity Fair discussing the attention she got after the movie was released. She revealed that people asked her about the character’s magic powers for years afterward. Wilson also gave her perspective on the character after the 30th anniversary of the original Roald Dahl book:
“I wonder if, like me, Matilda ever felt trapped by her past. I wonder if she ever felt like she was lost or floundering, like I did in my teens and early 20s. I don’t like to think of her in despair; she had enough of that in her life as a child. I would like to think — as idealistic as it may seem — that she didn’t let her past heroism define the rest of her life. She knew what mattered was not the labels, but the learning.”
Mara Wilson ended her acting career suddenly due to her weariness with the film industry
Wilson’s achievements made her the envy of many actors, but the fame did nothing to soothe her mental health. She retired from the film industry in 2000 and hasn’t returned to the big screen since.
The fact that child actors eventually experience puberty shouldn’t be a traumatic event for Hollywood powerbrokers. But the cruel focus on youthful bodies has a lot of consequences on the self-image of kids in the industry.
In an interview with NPR, Wilson explained that she received criticism for going through puberty during the production of Thomas and the Magic Railroad, her last role before calling it quits.
“They brought out these sports bras that were basically binders — they were meant to bind my chest. I felt completely humiliated,” Wilson said. “When you’re in middle school, when you’re a preteen, you always worry: Is everybody talking about me behind my back? And everybody was.”
It is an awful position to put a child in. But Wilson is far from the only one whose dealt with this sort of behavior. The sexualization of girls has been an issue in pop culture for decades and still impacts the career of many younger actors like Stanger Things star Millie Bobby Brown. Wilson actually wrote about Brown for Elle in 2017 — just one of many things she’s written with the hope of shining a light on the more shameful aspects of celebrity.
What is Mara Wilson doing now?
After leaving acting in the past, Wilson delved deeper into her childhood love of writing. She attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to study playwriting. The now-35-year-old is a published author of two books, Sheeple and Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame. She’s also written for several outlets about the experience of being a child actor and how it impacts the rest of your life.
Wilson has appeared on a small number of TV shows. She guest-starred on an episode of Broad City and did some voice work for BoJack Horseman and Big Hero 6: The Series.
