Mara Wilson
Mara Wilson is an actor, born 1987.
Wilson had one of the odder runs in nineties Hollywood: four films in five years, three of them leaning directly on her, beginning with Natalie in Mrs. Doubtfire and going on through Susan Walker in Miracle on 34th Street, the title role in Matilda and the girl at the centre of A Simple Wish.
Matilda is the one that lasted. Danny DeVito's film is meaner and stranger than children's book adaptations usually get, and it works because Wilson plays Matilda as watchful rather than cute, a child who has decided very early that the adults are the problem and that she will handle it herself.
Then she stopped. After Thomas and the Magic Railroad in 2000 she took a twelve-year break from acting and moved to writing instead.
The return, from 2012, has been voice work and web series rather than a comeback in the traditional sense: Liv Amara in Big Hero 6 The Series, additional voices in Helluva Boss. She also appears in Showbiz Kids, the documentary about growing up famous on screen, which is about as neat a closing of the loop as a career gets.
Movies (6)
TV (4)
Where to start with Mara Wilson
Matilda first and without hesitation. It is the best film she made, the best use of her, and one of the few adaptations that catches how funny Dahl is about awful adults.
Mrs. Doubtfire comes next, mostly to see how much she is doing in what is technically a small part, since the film's emotional logic runs through her. Miracle on 34th Street is the sentimental one and she keeps it from tipping over, which is harder than it looks, while A Simple Wish is the weak entry, a broad fantasy comedy that does not deserve her.
For the adult work, Showbiz Kids is the most interesting thing on the page, a documentary about child performers that she is unusually well placed to speak in, and Big Hero 6 The Series and Helluva Boss are where the voice acting lives.