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WORK TITLE: Where Am I Now
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 7/24/1987
WEBSITE: http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.npr.org/2016/09/11/493267233/where-am-i-now-mara-wilson-explains-what-happened-when-matilda-grew-up * http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-mara-wilson-20160907-snap-story.html
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born July 24, 1987, in Burbank, CA.
EDUCATION:Attended New York University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Actress and writer. Has appeared on numerous films and television shows. Host of the What Are You Afraid Of? stage show at the Public Theater, New York. Works for a nonprofit organization. Has appeared on radio shows and podcasts.
RELIGION: Jewish.WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Mara Wilson is a writer and actress based in New York City. She is perhaps best known for her roles as the lead in the film Matilda and as one of Robin Williams’s character’s children in Mrs. Doubtfire. Wilson has appeared in other films as well as in television shows. She attended New York University and works for a nonprofit organization. Wilson is also the host of the What Are You Afraid Of? stage show at the Public Theater, in New York.
In 2016, she released her first book, a memoir called Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame. In this volume, Wilson recalls her experiences as a child actor. In an interview with Rachel Martin, excerpts of which appeared on the National Public Radio Web site, Wilson discussed the significance of starring in Matilda, the film adaptation of the famous book by Roald Dahl. She stated: “At that point I was thrilled because Matilda was a book that I had loved, a character that I had loved. But beforehand it didn’t really dawn on me, and maybe it’s just because I was too young. I was five, six years old. … I remember I got to have the most amazing birthday party ever courtesy of Danny DeVito and his family. I got to travel. And, on a pragmatic level, it helped me pay for college. I’m not a millionaire, but it was a cushion.” Wilson also discusses her mother’s death, her decision to stop acting, and her mental health issues, including her struggle with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Regarding including stories about her experiences in Hollywood in the book, Wilson told Marah Eakin, writer on the A.V. Club Web site: “The Hollywood stuff in the book tended to come later. I think it was because I was worried about leading with that stuff. I wanted to try to make sure that the other stories in the book were as interesting.” Wilson continued: “I wanted to spend more time on them and craft them. The thing is, with writing, it’s form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way. So I really wanted to make sure that that was good, that those things could stand on their own next to Hollywood stories. Because there is something inherently funny about accidentally elbowing Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the groin.” In an interview with Amy Kaufman, contributor to the online version of the Los Angeles Times, Wilson explained why she decided to write the book. She stated: “When you see that somebody’s last credit is Thomas and the Magic Railroad when they’re an awkward twelve-year-old, you’re, like, ‘Oh, how sad.’ … You don’t know what happens between those IMDB entries. I knew there were people who felt sorry for me and people who were making up stories about me. I think I wanted to reclaim that narrative.”
In a favorable assessment of Where Am I Now? that appeared in Library Journal, Natalie Browning praised “the lyrical and affecting prose.” Browning added: “Wilson’s perspective is humorous, relatable, and ultimately real. “Wilson is a warm narrator, and the challenges she describes facing and working through will likely resonate with those battling mental illness,” asserted a Publishers Weekly critic. A contributor to the online version of Kirkus Reviews suggested: “This funny, at times painful, but always honest book tells a coming-of-age story that is not only entertaining, but also wise.” The same contributor described the book as “a readably candid, sharp memoir.”
Simon Brew, reviewer on the Den of Geek Web site, commented: “This isn’t a downbeat book. It’s not always an easy one to read (and there’s a real sense it’s not been an easy life to live), but there’s richness, and humanity, and an awful lot of wit.” Brew concluded: “Mara Wilson is a beautiful writer, a natural storyteller, and Where Am I Now? is a testament to that.” Writing on the Bookbag Web site, Luke Marlowe remarked: “All of the stories here have a strong sense of humour to them, and Mara is a skilled enough writer to easily make an empathic connection with the reader, the shortness of the chapters meaning that one is never stuck in a period for too long, but moves swiftly between different periods in the writer’s life.” A reviewer on the Paper Trail Diary Web site opined: “Where Am I Now? is a great read—something you can pick up and put down or read all the way through, something everyone can find something to identify with, and overall, it’s totally enjoyable and interesting.” The same reviewer added: “Her style flows so naturally, like she’s talking to you, and it’s really funny and poignant. She could make the smallest things sound interesting. She’s so in touch with her memories and feelings that they just jump off the page.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Library Journal, June 15, 2016, Natalie Browning, review of Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame, p. 76.
Publishers Weekly, June 13, 2016, review of Where Am I Now?, p. 84.
ONLINE
A.V. Club, http://www.avclub.com/ (September 12, 2016), Danette Chavez, review of Where Am I Now?; (September 14, 2016), Marah Eakin, author interview.
Bookbag, http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/ (November 3, 2016), Luke Marlowe, review of Where Am I Now?
Den of Geek, http://www.denofgeek.com/ (October 10, 2016), Simon Brew, review of Where Am I Now?
Entertainment Weekly Online, http://ew.com/ (September 13, 2016), Madeline Raynor, review of Where Am I Now?
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (July 4, 2016), review of Where Am I Now?
Los Angeles Times Online, http://www.latimes.com/ (March 20, 2017), Amy Kaufman, author interview.
Mara Wilson Home Page, http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com (March 20, 2017).
National Public Radio Online, http://www.npr.org/ (September 11, 2016), Rachel Martin, author interview.
Paper Trail Diary, http://papertraildiary.com/ (September 30, 2016), review of Where Am I Now?
QUOTED: "When you see that somebody’s last credit is ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ when they’re an awkward 12-year-old, you’re, like, ‘Oh, how sad.' ... You don’t know what happens between those IMDB entries. I knew there were people who felt sorry for me and people who were making up stories about me. I think I wanted to reclaim that narrative.”
Actress Mara Wilson has a memoir. She's not Matilda anymore.
Mara Wilson
Mara Wilson, seen here at the Tea Rose Garden in Old Town Pasadena, has written her first memoir. It's about her days as a child actor in Hollywood. (Christina House / For The Times)
Amy Kaufman
When Mara Wilson was a little girl, Hollywood couldn’t get enough of her.
She was one of those child actors who seemed preternaturally mature. Her vocabulary was surprisingly expansive. She could carry on full-blown conversations with adults. And she appeared to be in full control of her emotions, bringing out the puppy dog eyes at just the right moment.
Interviewing Wilson on the “Today” show in 1994, Katie Couric declared: “Every time I see you in a movie, I just want to put you in my pocket and take you home with me.”
Wilson was just 7 then, but she’d already had memorable roles in a remake of “Miracle on 34th Street” and opposite Robin Williams in “Mrs. Doubtfire.” A couple years later she’d score her biggest part yet: Playing Matilda in a film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic about the precocious book lover.
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Then the offers stopped coming. As she hit her teenage years — a dreaded period of change for any child star — it seemed studio executives didn’t find her all that cute anymore. Wilson started looking at her peers — Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley — and she knew.
“I knew that wasn’t me,” said Wilson, now 29. “I would look at Keira — who is two years older than me — in magazines and think, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be as hot as her in two years. Things will have barely changed.’ I felt — and sometimes I still feel this way — I felt upset when I would meet people, because they seemed disappointed that I wasn’t cute.”
It’s a struggle she details in her new memoir, “Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame,” which was published Tuesday. Wilson has been writing for years: She studied playwriting at New York University; her website is named marawilsonwritesstuff.com; and her witty commentary on Twitter has earned her 300,000 followers. But when lit agents began approaching her with the idea of writing a book about her days in the movie business, she sparked at the idea of being able to explain herself in more than 140 characters.
“When you see that somebody’s last credit is ‘Thomas and the Magic Railroad’ when they’re an awkward 12-year-old, you’re, like, ‘Oh, how sad,’” she said. “You don’t know what happens between those IMDB entries. I knew there were people who felt sorry for me and people who were making up stories about me. I think I wanted to reclaim that narrative.”
Wilson was sitting at the Tea Rose Garden in Old Town Pasadena, a quaint cafe she went to with her “Matilda” castmates when she was a girl. Though she now calls New York City home, Wilson is a Burbank native, and most of her family still lives here. But as soon as she got the chance to move out of L.A., she jumped. At 18, she felt like everyone here was too focused on looks. Plus, she sunburned easily. And all the driving made her carsick.
But even 3,000 miles away, she found it difficult to escape her reputation. At NYU, she was “a thousand percent” known as the girl who used to be a child star, said Rachel Bloom, star of the CW’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and Wilson’s former classmate there.
“I remember the first time she brought ‘it’ up. I was, like, ‘Wait! Wait! You’re Matlida! I was such a fan,’” said Bloom, who met Wilson while hanging lights in a theater tech class freshman year. “I’d heard a couple people be, like, ‘She’s not that friendly. She’s kind of cynical and dark.’ She was a child star, so people expect her to be bubbly and happy. But she was this dark and neurotic Jew from Los Angeles, and I thought she was awesome.”
Mara Wilson
Mara Wilson (Christina House / For The Times)
The fact that Wilson even went to college is a rarity for a kid actor. Most young stars decide to strike while the iron is hot -- meaning keep acting while they still look fresh-faced -- instead of pursuing higher education. Wilson credits her interest in education to her parents, both of whom attended Northwestern University on scholarships. Her mother, who served as her manager, died from cancer when Wilson was just 8.
“Her mom treated her so differently than most of these kids’ moms,” said Bonnie Liedtke, who was Wilson’s agent for 10 years and also represented Leonardo DiCaprio and Zac Efron when they were kids. “We were on a set in Chicago once, and she needed to go to the ladies room. They radioed in two ADs to escort her, and Mara’s mother screamed at them. ‘She’s just going to the restroom! She needs to be a normal kid!’ She made sure she kept it as humble and normal as possible, and Mara was able to hold on to that.”
“The only stars are in the sky.” That was the credo in the Wilson home. Any money she made on film sets was put far away in saving accounts that she wasn’t allowed to touch. Once, when she was shopping for dorm room supplies at Target, Wilson got into a fight with her father because she wanted to buy some slightly pricier items. She was paying her own tuition, she argued, so why shouldn’t she be able to get whatever she wanted at Target?
“And he said, ‘Do you understand how much sacrifice it took on our part to get you those places?’” she said, taking a bite out of a miniature cucumber sandwich. “‘You wanted to keep acting, and we were the ones driving you everywhere and with you on set the whole time. That was work for us too, but we never got paid for it and we’re never going to get paid for it.’ That was sort of this reality check for me, like, ‘Oh, right, this actually did take a lot of sacrifice.’”
Her ability to step outside herself is evident in “Where Am I Now?,” in which she talks about the harsh realities of the movie business without letting emotion overwhelm her. Of those awkward post-puberty years, she writes: “As I saw it, when it came to careers, I had three choices: get cosmetic surgery and go out on auditions for the cute and funny best friend characters, stay the way I was and go out for the meager character actor roles for young women, or accept myself and give up the idea of a Hollywood film acting career.”
She went with the latter option, primarily as a means of self-protection: “If I was going to break up with Hollywood,” she writes, “I wanted it to be mutual.”
Wilson still acts occasionally — just not on the big screen. She does a lot of voice work, most recently on “BoJack Horseman.” And she hosts a show at New York’s Public Theater called “What Are You Afraid Of?” about people’s phobias.
Sometimes, she said, she misses being on film sets, which she has plenty of warm memories from.
“One thing I always loved was the rolling chorus — when they’d call ‘speed, marker, background, action,’” she remembered. “The sound of it was comforting to me. I took note of the different ways directors said action. Chris Columbus would kind of stretch it out. And Danny DeVito would yell ‘cut’ just by making weird noises.”
But writing has brought her a different kind of fulfillment. She’s currently working on a couple of pilots and a graphic novel. And she’s still very active on Twitter, where last month she revealed to her followers that she identifies as “bi/queer.”
“It wasn’t until I was well into my 20s that I was, like, I’m going to need to face the fact that I definitely had a crush with Lucy Liu when I was on a sitcom with her,” she said with a laugh. “I’m not just attracted to one gender. I’m attracted to men, women — some people who don’t really consider themselves either. I think that it kind of explains some things about me — just puts them into perspective. That I used to pretend to be a carpenter in kindergarten. That one day I was really sad that Lucy Liu didn’t show up to set because she had food poisoning.”
For someone who has lived her life with an audience since she was a girl, it makes sense that Wilson is most comfortable finding herself in public. But in a way, it seems that she’s always known how her story would play out.
Mara Wilson in 'Matilda'
Mara Wilson in 'Matilda' (Francois Duhamel, Columbia/TriStar)
“I might not want to be an actress all of my life,” the 7 year-old told Couric in that “Today” show interview.
“I understand you’re thinking about becoming a screenwriter,” Couric replied. “Have you written any scripts yet?”
“No,” Wilson answered. “I have a lot of them in my head.”
“Well, good,” Couric said. “I think you’ve got a lot of stuff in your head, Mara.”
Mara Wilson reads from “Where Am I Now?”
Where: Barnes & Noble at the Grove, 189 Grove Drive, Los Angeles
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 20
Admission: Free, wristbands required
amy.kaufman@latimes.com
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QUOTED: "At that point I was thrilled because Matilda was a book that I had loved, a character that I had loved. But beforehand it didn't really dawn on me, and maybe it's just because I was too young. I was 5, 6 years old. ... I remember I got to have the most amazing birthday party ever courtesy of Danny DeVito and his family. I got to travel. And, on a pragmatic level, it helped me pay for college. I'm not a millionaire, but it was a cushion."
'Where Am I Now?' Mara Wilson Explains What Happened When Matilda Grew Up
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Where Am I Now?
Where Am I Now?
True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame
by Mara Wilson
Paperback, 259 pages purchase
Mara Wilson says that the most complicated relationship she has ever had is with a fictional 6-year-old girl. That's because you probably know Wilson best as Matilda, from the 1996 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic.
"I wanted to be her so badly ... " Wilson tells NPR's Rachel Martin. "She's kind of like my big sister overshadowing me."
Wilson, now 29, was a successful child actress — you may also recognize her from her starring roles as Natalie Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire, or as Susan Walker in Miracle on 34th Street.
Wilson struggled with the feeling that people liked her characters more than they liked her. When she was in college, a teacher suggested that she write a letter to Matilda. Wilson says that going back to Dahl's book helped her appreciate what a privilege it had been to take on the role of the brave, bighearted little girl.
She "gained power through knowledge," Wilson says. She was "a young girl who was intelligent, and thoughtful, and considerate of her friends, and had a strong sense of justice." Wilson says there are a lot of girls — a lot of people — out there like that, and she suspects Matilda feels very real to them as well.
In 2000, Wilson left acting and focused on writing. She talks with Martin about her new book, Where Am I Now?
Interview Highlights
Mara Wilson's writing has appeared in Jezebel, The Toast, McSweeney's and The Daily Beast. She lives in New York City.
Ari Scott/Penguin Books
On whether she appreciated being a child actor at the time
I think it didn't really resonate with me until I got Matilda. At that point I was thrilled because Matilda was a book that I had loved, a character that I had loved. But beforehand it didn't really dawn on me, and maybe it's just because I was too young. I was 5, 6 years old. ... I remember I got to have the most amazing birthday party ever courtesy of Danny DeVito and his family. I got to travel. And, on a pragmatic level, it helped me pay for college. I'm not a millionaire, but it was a cushion.
On why she caught the eye of directors and casting agents
I think I had a good ear for dialogue from a young age — and I think that was probably because I spent a lot of time eavesdropping on my parents and my three older brothers. I loved to read from a young age, too, so because of that I could read my lines, which made things a lot easier.
On her mother dying when she was 8, and the effect it had on her acting
Sometimes I wish I had stopped [acting] after Matilda because I think that that was really the peak for me. There wasn't really anywhere that I could go from there. So I think that I was already starting to age out of acting. ... I think it would have been a good time to re-evaluate things. But I think that after my mother died, I felt like I had to keep going because film was the only constant in my life. ...
I was very depressed, I was very anxious, I can barely even remember Matilda coming out. I only have vague memories of the premiere, and it was really hard for me. So I think that I definitely became kind of disenchanted with acting, with Hollywood, while, at the same time, it was a crutch for me. It was something where, when it was done, I didn't know what to do with myself.
I looked halfway between a child and an adult. ... People didn't know what to do with me, and I knew it, and I felt it, and it really hurt.
Former child actor Mara Wilson
On being a child actor who is no longer a child
They always want child actors to play parts that are a few years younger than they are, but when you're a 12-, 13-year-old girl and your body's changing and your voice is changing, you can't. I couldn't play 10 anymore. I didn't look 10 anymore. I wasn't as cute anymore because I looked halfway between a child and an adult — which is what puberty is. People didn't know what to do with me, and I knew it, and I felt it, and it really hurt.
On going through puberty
I was on the set of a movie called Thomas and the Magic Railroad. ... I came to set one day after a few months away, and people were kind of giving each other worried looks. ... And I had to have the director come and sit with me and explain to me that my body was changing.
Wilson was already 12 when she played 10-year-old Lily in Thomas and the Magic Railroad. She says going through puberty on set was intensely humiliating.
Paul Vathis/AP
I was horrified, I felt embarrassed, I felt like I had done something wrong even though I hadn't. They brought out these sports bras that were basically binders — they were meant to bind my chest. I felt completely humiliated. ... 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.
On leaving acting behind
There wasn't like one big moment where I knew I was done. ... The rejection hurt because it had been just such a prominent part of my life for so long. It had been the thing that defined me.
I remember in college I would sleep through my acting classes — I would self-sabotage — because I was so afraid to let people see me as an actor. I was at NYU and I knew there were a lot of good actors there, and the thing about acting classes is you're playing parts you don't usually play. ... [You have to] not be afraid to make mistakes. Well, I was terrified; I was frozen with fear.
That's when I started focusing more on writing. Writing I'd always loved. Even on the sets of various movies, I would always be in my trailer writing stories — usually very similar to whatever Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary or Bruce Coville book I was reading at the time — but I loved to write. I started writing dialogue, and I started doing performance pieces — like 10-minute solo performance pieces — and eventually I did a one-woman show, and that felt so much more real than being on a set every day.
There's a saying ... "If you can live without it, you should," and I found that I could.
More With Mara Wilson
'Matilda' Star Mara Wilson On Why Some Child Actors Lose It
POP CULTURE
'Matilda' Star Mara Wilson On Why Some Child Actors Lose It
On where she is now
I feel good about myself, and I feel like I'm sort of in control of my own story and my own narrative. Which is a really good feeling to have, because I don't think I had that when I was a child. I felt like somebody else was always telling my story or making up stories about me. ... Making up stories and telling stories, and telling true stories, has always been what I wanted to do, and it is what I am still doing.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Are you Matilda?
No, but I played her in a movie.
Are you that girl from Mrs. Doubtfire or Miracle on 34th Street?
Yep.
Why don’t you act anymore?
I answered that here and here.
How do you pronounce your name?
MAHR-a, like “car” or “bar” or, well, “mar”. It doesn’t rhyme with “Sarah.”
What do you look like now?
This:
Photo taken by Ari Scott, of AriScott.com.
Also taken by Ari Scott, of AriScott.com.
Do you have an agent?
Yes, my book agent is Alyssa Reuben at Paradigm, and my voice-over agent is Jeb Bernstein, also at Paradigm. You can contact them with inquiries!
Is @MaraWritesStuff your official Twitter account?
Yes!
You weren’t verified for so long! How did you get verified?
To be honest, I have no idea. I woke up one day and the check mark was there.
Can you help me get verified?
I wish I could, but like I said, I have no idea how it happened!
Will you follow me on Twitter?
If I find what you say funny or relevant to my interests, sure! If it isn’t, or if most of your Timeline is just asking people to follow you, probably not. Please don’t keep asking. Asking me to follow you almost certainly ensures that I won’t. Blame my contrary streak.
Hey, heh heh, DON’T follow me! See what I did there? …Will you follow me now?
Yes, I do, and no, I probably won’t. Sorry.
Why do you retweet so much?
I’m allowed to be a fan, too! Sometimes I really like what people say, other times I’m retweeting my (very funny and talented) friends, and I’ve been told this actually helped them get some exposure. I’m something of a Twitter Fairy Godmother, and I like it that way. If you don’t, you can always turn off my retweets.
Have you seen the video of Mrs. Doubtfire recut as a horror movie?
Yes. It was very funny the first few times I saw it! Now that someone sends it to me at least once a week, it’s a little less funny.
Do you know about Matilda: The Musical?
Yes, I’ve seen it! It’s a very good show and I highly recommend it. Tim Minchin stays true to Dahl’s spirit, and the actress playing Matilda when I saw it (Oona Laurence) was great. I had a chance to meet Sophia Gennusa, another one of the Matildas, at a First Book event, and not only was she was as sweet as can be and remarkably talented, she was also refreshingly down to earth. It’s an honor to share this great character with these girls.
Don’t you think you should play Miss Honey in Matilda: The Musical?
It would be a funny inside joke, but I don’t think I’m suited to play her at all. I’m not a dainty ingenue type and I’m only a passable singer. There are many other actresses who are better suited for that part. Maybe if they made it into a movie, I could have a cameo, but that’s for them to decide.
Don’t you think there should be a Matilda 2? Can you make that happen?
No, and no. I don’t have that kind of pull in show business (at least not anymore), and I think a sequel to Roald Dahl’s book would be disrespectful to his memory. If you really want there to be a Matilda 2, I suggest you write it yourself. Have fun!
What about a Mrs. Doubtfire 2?
I’ve heard rumors that one was in development a few years back, but I have no interest in being in it. And again, I can’t make that happen.
Can you make me famous?
Again, I don’t have that kind of pull, sorry. If I like the thing you made, there’s a chance I’ll post it on Facebook or tweet about it, but I can’t connect you to any industry professionals.
Do you watch your movies when they’re on?
Not usually. Sometimes other people will insist on watching them when I’m around, but I feel uncomfortable watching myself. I’m a perfectionist.
I am watching one of your movies! Should I take a picture of the screen or of a video with your face on it and send it to you?
You really don’t have to do that. They’re on cable a lot — which is great news for me, it will pay my ConEd bill that month — and I’m glad you like them, but pictures aren’t necessary.
Was _______ fun to work with?
Danny Devito, Rhea Perlman, Robin Williams, Sally Field, Sir Richard Attenborough, Elizabeth Perkins, Dylan McDermott, Tim Curry, Martin Short, Kathleen Turner, and most of the people I’m regularly asked about were wonderful.
Was _______ terrible to work with?
If they were, I’m not going to say so. Why sink to their level?
Will you be in my film project?
Unless I know you personally, probably not. I’m sorry. Additionally, I’m SAG-AFTRA, which means I’m not allowed to do film projects unless the filmmakers follow their rules. It would just be a headache and a bunch of paperwork for you. I can, however, direct you to some other talented actors (friends of mine from college, mostly) who would jump at the chance.
You say you don’t act anymore, but then you acted in THIS project! What’s that about?
I don’t act professionally anymore, i.e., I do not pursue film acting as a career. I don’t go on auditions or casting calls: the business of acting stresses me out, and I don’t think it’s worth it. But I do enjoy acting with or for good friends, or at least for people I know and respect. Acting can be fun (stage and voice acting, especially) and I’ll do it if I feel like it will be. I’m sure you can think of many activities people do with people they love and trust, but would never do for money.
Do you still do voice-over acting?
Yes! I’ve always loved V/O.
Will you be on my podcast?
The great thing about podcasts is anyone can make one. The bad thing about podcasts is anyone can make one. If you ask me to do your podcast and I have never heard of it, I have no way of knowing if it’s a real thing, if you can be trusted, and if I will be safe doing it. Many are done in people’s homes, and I would not be comfortable being in a stranger’s home.
Additionally, asking me to do your podcast is asking for my time without any kind of payment or recompense. This is fine if it is good exposure and a way to promote something I’m doing, but if you have a small audience, there really isn’t much payoff for me. I know that sounds cruel, but think about what you do for a job, and imagine if people wanted to you to do it for free and without much recognition. You probably wouldn’t do it unless it was for a friend, and neither will I. My rule is I will not do any podcasts unless I have heard of them, am a fan of them, or know the people who do them. (This was the case with Welcome to Night Vale: I knew them through mutual friends who worked with the New York Neo-Futurists and loved what they did.)
Why do you have the same hairstyle you had as a kid?
…Does this really bother you?
Anyway, the truth is I don’t. I had various short hairstyles through high school and college, and I have very long hair now, longer than I ever had as a kid. I probably won’t ever get rid of the bangs, though, because I have what gossip columnists have a “five-head”. One reason I like not being an actress anymore is that I’m not, and never have been, very glamorous or stylish. I played nerdy girls, not pretty girls. There are many more attractive actresses and famous people to look at, I’m fine with not being one of them.
Was it really that you left acting or was it just that they didn’t want you anymore?
I like to think of it as a mutual break-up: Hollywood didn’t really want me anymore, and I was over it, too.
Why do you talk about your acting all the time?
Because people ask. When people ask me about other things, I answer them.
Will you be my girlfriend?
I’m immensely flattered, and if we knew each other in person and were attracted to each other, I’m sure we could date. As it stands, probably not. I’m sorry.
Can we be best friends?
If we met in real life, perhaps we could be friends. I have made friends online, but it was through discussion, shared interests, and appreciation of each other’s work that we became friends. It was not by someone asking to be my best friend. Friendship is a mutual thing.
I have noticed that we do not have the same beliefs/religion! Should I try to convert you to mine?!
No thanks. I’ve come to my beliefs my own way, and it was a rather long and private process. You are extremely unlikely to change what I believe — and, I imagine, vice versa. Please respect that.
Someone is saying mean stuff about you on the internet! Should I tell you about it?
Please don’t. People are free to dislike me for whatever reason, but I don’t need to be told about it. Just let them be and let me be.
I think you’re horrible! Should I tell you about it?
I’m sorry you feel that way, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather you not tell me. You’re free to hate me, but please don’t tweet it at me or write it on my Facebook wall or contact me just to tell me that. It’s just rude.
You were wrong about something, and I would like to correct you in a courteous and constructive way. Should I do that?
Yes, please! Correct me if I’m wrong. Seriously, I’d rather know when I’m wrong.
Are you and the Nostalgia Chick really neighbors?
In a New York sense, yes. We’re within walking distance. But keep in mind the average New Yorker walks far more than an average suburbanite.
What do you think of Doug Walker?
He is a very nice guy! And Shut Up and Talk was probably my favorite interview ever.
What do you do during the week?
Write, and work for this awesome nonprofit organization.
Why don’t you blog more?
Because, believe it or not, I put a LOT of thought into my entries. I’m also busy writing other things right now.
Can I read more of your writing?
Thanks for your interest! I’m working on making that happen right now. I’ll let you know!
Why do you take yourself so seriously?
I’m the only thing I don’t take seriously.
People don’t really ask you these questions, do they?
Every one of these is either a direct question I’ve been asked multiple times, or a statement made about me I figured I should address. Trust me, I know I’m not that important. If I come off as aloof, it’s just because I’m bemused that people care about a former child actor/would-be writer they’ve never met. And if you read anything I’ve written, I think it’s pretty clear that ninety percent of the time, the joke is on me.
MARA WILSON SAYS STUFF
Storytelling is becoming something of a movement here in New York, and it seems to be moving to other cities, as well. It’s pretty much what it sounds like: telling stories onstage, though there’s some overlap with stand-up comedy and spoken word performance art as well. If you’ve ever listened to The Moth or even This American Life, you’ll have an idea of what it’s like. (If you haven’t, try listening to some of Elna Baker‘s stories. They’re very funny and honest and a good place to start.)
My life has been full of strange and interesting moments, some sad and many hilarious, so storytelling shows have been a good fit for me. These days, when I’m not writing for this blog, working on the novel, or working with Publicolor, I’m usually preparing for a storytelling show. Many of them are one-time performances, but some have been recorded.
For example, here I am on The Jukebox Show, talking about my experiences in show choir and busting out some old choreography. The Jukebox Show is a storytelling/comedy/karaoke show that happens every month at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and it’s always a lot of fun!
I also had the change to tell one of my all-time favorite stories about one of my most embarrassing moments, on The Storytime Hour. It’s a great podcast and Erica and Jolenta are wonderful hosts.
If you want to hear about the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, you should listen to this episode of RISK! (I was also on a holiday episode.) This was very exciting for me, as I loved Kevin Allison in The State (If you have not seen The State, you are missing out — they are one of the best sketch comedy troupes ever) and I’m a huge fan of RISK! If you’re in New York City, you can often catch it at The PIT, there’s a branch at the Nerdmelt Theater in Los Angeles, and the show tours different cities, too. Think of it as an NC-17 version of The Moth. Mind you, my stories are not particularly risque (the holiday one’s actually quite sad), but most RISK! stories are. This is definitely a show and podcast for mature audiences.
I’ve also done or will be doing Showgasm, Story Collider, My High School Boyfriend Was Gay, Comedy at the Grocery, Tell It! Brooklyn, The Next Chapter, Queer Not Cool, and appeared on Political Subversities‘ Election Night 2012 Special. Check my Facebook and Twitter for information on future shows, and keep checking here for links to recordings of my stories!
QUOTED: "The Hollywood stuff in the book tended to come later. I think it was because I was worried about leading with that stuff. I wanted to try to make sure that the other stories in the book were as interesting."
"I wanted to spend more time on them and craft them. The thing is, with writing, it’s form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way. So I really wanted to make sure that that was good, that those things could stand on their own next to Hollywood stories. Because there is something inherently funny about accidentally elbowing Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the groin."
Mara Wilson says she isn’t Matilda, no matter how much you want her to be
By Marah Eakin@marahe
Sep 14, 2016 12:00 AM
Photo: Ari Scott
Photo: Ari Scott
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Most of us barely remember what it was like to be 5 years old. Mara Wilson has the whole thing on film. The now 29-year-old former child star became famous for her roles in Mrs. Doubtfire, Matilda, and Miracle On 34th Street, all of which she starred in before her 9th birthday. Wilson’s career stuttered as she entered puberty, and Wilson ultimately decided to step away from the business, choosing instead to become a non-profit staffer, playwright, and occasional voice on Welcome To Night Vale. But she never really left childhood stardom behind—thanks in part, presumably, to the tens of thousands of people on the internet who won’t let her—and she’s now written about it in an excellent new book, Where Am I Now?: True Stories Of Girlhood And Accidental Fame. The A.V. Club talked to her about that book, and about how she learned to be okay with growing up.
The A.V. Club: Your childhood is on film, but you were pretty young. How much do you remember? And how much do people expect you to remember?
Mara Wilson: I’m surprised by how much I remember. I think it’s just because I had these interesting moments. Of course, you never know when they’re interesting moments, but there was a lot of stuff that I remember and have attached significance to later. I remember enough. I remember highlights.
It is strange to have everybody in the world still think of you as a child. That has definitely been something that is hard. I think that’s why a lot of child actors think they need to re-invent themselves, especially young women. Usually what they do is they adopt a sort of overt sexuality. It’s fine if they want to do that, but a lot of times I think they feel obliged to do that, and that is something that I don’t think anybody should feel obliged to express.
For me, it’s a bit like when you see your mom’s friends, and they’re like, “I remember when you were this big. You’ll always be that cute little kid to me.” It’s like that times a thousand. Well, times a couple thousand. Because that’s kind of what it is.
It’s a little bit annoying, because it feels like everybody’s taking the power away from you. Everybody’s taking your adult life away from you. On one level, I used to resent it. I did even two years ago.
It definitely is something that can get frustrating, because you want to live life on your own terms, and it feels for a while like you can’t. But I’ve come to understand that I got to have all these amazing experiences that other people don’t have. So this is the trade-off.
AVC: People aren’t even necessarily looking at you as Mara Wilson the person, but as Mara Wilson, this character that they watched a hundred times.
MW: People totally conflate me with Matilda, which in some ways serves me well because that means people think I’m smarter than I am. Sure, I love to read, and I love to learn, but I was always nerdy that way. But people imagined that I was her. We had things in common, but I was never a prodigy. I was never a child genius. Fortunately, it works to my benefit.
But also, I get a lot of “Shut up, Matilda.” I probably get as many “Shut up, Matildas” as Wil Wheaton gets “Shut up, Wesleys.” That was an actual line on his show, though.
A lot of it is shutting me down. Basically, what people are saying is, “You’re a little girl to me forever.” But at the same time, like I said, it’s nice. I love Matilda the character, I always will. I’ll always appreciate that.
For a while, it was like living in the shadow of an older sibling. I had three older brothers who were academically brilliant and talented and had tons of friends. So I had that in my actual life and with public school, and then I had that with Matilda, having this character who was smarter and stronger than I was [who was] overshadowing everything I did. So I had it literally and figuratively. It was definitely hard. It definitely caused some angst for a while.
I think that I’ve come to peace with it, though, because I just have to be grateful for it. It is annoying when people call me Matilda instead of my name when they actually know my name, because you know, we are two different people. But what can you do?
AVC: In your book, you talked about how early you had to come to terms with aging. Some of us don’t have to deal with it until we’re 30, or until we get gray hair, but you were worried about it when you were 10, 11, 12 years old. Is that still something you’re working on?
MW: I was very aware of my age. I was very aware of being younger than everybody on set. The original title for the book was (K) For Kid, which is what they put on a call sheet. They put a “K” in parentheses next to your name, because they had to differentiate you from everybody else there.
I did picture being a grown-up, but I wasn’t quite sure how I would get there. I worried about it sometimes. I had so many adults around me reminding me that I was a kid. I also had a lot of adults saying things to me like, “When I was your age...” and sort of idealizing it. I didn’t like that they idealized it. I would go to the craft services table and have Oreos or whatever, and a grown woman would come up to me and look at what I was eating and sigh and go, “I remember the days when I could eat like that.” And I never knew what to say that, because I was 9. Eventually, what I started doing—and I didn’t even know what I meant when I said this—but eventually what I started doing was just kind of sighing and going, “Yeah, me too.” The truth is that she can still eat like that if she so desires, but she doesn’t feel like she can, which is sad.
Puberty was definitely difficult for me. I remember my friends and I looking forward to puberty because it seemed exciting at first. You read Judy Blume and you think, “This is kind of cool.” But when it actually started happening to me, I was terrified. I didn’t want to whisper and giggle about it anymore. I felt incredibly self-conscious. I felt like I was losing myself, and I was losing who I was. And that really scared me. I felt like I had to be conscious of myself as a girl for the first time. I had to be more feminine. I had to look a certain way. And it’s something that you want to suffer in silence, but I would go onto movie sets and they would bring out bras that were basically binders, because there were continuity problems between months.
You always worry that everybody is secretly talking about you behind your back, everybody is secretly making fun of your voice, your figure, the way that you are during puberty, but it turned out, in real life, everybody was. On movie sets, they were all talking about these things, because they had to. Because when you’re an actor, your body isn’t your own. Your body is part of a tool that you use. Everybody else there is using you as a tool, so they have access to those things, too.
AVC: It can happen so quickly for child actors, too. With the success of Stranger Things, people have said, “Wow, they’re really rushing into this second season.” But they really have to if everyone wants these kids to still be kids on the screen.
MW: Yeah, they do. And those kids are at an age now where they’re sort of in between. That’s one of the great things about the show is that it shows kids who are in between.
Children change a lot in terms of personality. Camaraderie that you feel with somebody might not be there a year later. That group might not have the same chemistry. So I completely understand why they’re rushing into it, because they probably feel like they have to.
AVC: There’s a part in the book where you talk about how adults seem to love “hilariously” sexualizing kids, like asking you what actors you find sexy, or if you have a boyfriend. Why do you think that is?
MW: I think that happens because they find it amusing. David Sedaris wrote in one of his books that people like to make children into little grown-ups, which to him is about as funny as a dog in sunglasses. Honestly, I think a dog in sunglasses is kind of funny, but that’s what they like to do.
People seem to forget what it was like to be a child. I think it’s partly because they want to forget, because it usually wasn’t as good as you thought it was, and so you want to skip over those things, and not have to relate to that anymore. They want to bring kids to their level, and they want to make it seem like kids have this thing. It’s seen as funny to them.
I can’t even count how many times I did interviews with people and they asked me if I had a boyfriend. Keep in mind that I was, I guess, mild to moderately famous from ages 6 to 13. Of course I didn’t have a boyfriend then. I didn’t even have a camp boyfriend then. I was such a nerd. It just wasn’t something I would have wanted. And I didn’t want to act like an adult.
They do it because they think it’s funny—because it’s easier to see children as mini adults than it is to imagine or to remember what it is to be a child again. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’ve always really loved stories told from the point of view of children. I remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird when I was 12. What I liked about it is that it was all seen through a child’s eyes. It was Harper Lee going back and writing it from the way a child would see those things. And that was something that really impressed me, because it felt like so often people just kind of grew up and discovered sex and that changed everything, which sounds a little C.S. Lewis when I’m talking about it, but that’s what I thought as a kid. I didn’t trust adults because I thought they were all kind of corrupted. I thought children were pure and innocent, and that was inherently better. I guess I was a philosophical child.
AVC: That’s certainly clear in the book.
MW: I’ve been accused of being pretentious and insufferable, and I don’t really know what I can say about that. I never got good grades in school, but I did read the dictionary for fun. That was just the kind of stuff that I liked to do. I can’t apologize for that. I’m not trying to be an asshole about it, and I’m not trying to get attention for it. It’s just the way that I am. It was something I was obsessed with as a child.
I remember doing that horrible thing that girls do where they call another girl a slut. Eventually, I got old enough that I realized that a slut is just somebody who has made out with or had sex with one more person than you have. That’s the thing. It’s always, “I’m not a slut.” Well, unless you’re reclaiming it, I suppose. But it’s something that you call somebody in opposition to yourself. It’s really about what you think about yourself. That’s really implied in that.
AVC: Did you feel any pressure when you wrote the book to be revealing or to be titillating? Did you think, “I have to tell juicy stories about other actors,” or, “I have to tell the story about the first time I had sex?”
MW: There were some things that I knew I wasn’t going to talk about, and not just because one or two of my exes have gone to law school. There were things that I knew that I was going to keep to myself. I knew I didn’t want to put anything down in writing about the first time that I had sex. I knew that I didn’t want to do that.
The Hollywood stuff in the book tended to come later. I think it was because I was worried about leading with that stuff. I wanted to try to make sure that the other stories in the book were as interesting. I wanted to spend more time on them and craft them. The thing is, with writing, it’s form or content. You need to write about something interesting or you need to write about it in an interesting way. So I really wanted to make sure that that was good, that those things could stand on their own next to Hollywood stories. Because there is something inherently funny about accidentally elbowing Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the groin.
There was actually one story that we ended up scrapping, and it was basically just an introduction to how I got into acting. In it, I talked about my first commercials and the things my agents told me, and how I didn’t even realize this at the time, but I was in my first commercial when I was a baby, and I had no idea. I thought I started acting at 5 or 6, it was really when they were interviewing real families for a toothpaste commercial. They interviewed our family. I watched the video when I was 20, and in the video, there are two families. The first family is this smiling blond Partridge family, a Californian/Aryan kind of thing, all playing guitars, all singing together and harmonizing. And then, there’s my family—and in my family, it starts with my mom saying that she feels like a drill sergeant sometimes, and she’s yelling at one of my brothers to stop hitting another one of my brothers. It’s just like, “Great, we’re that family.” It felt a little Simpsons versus Flanders.
But yeah, I’m a baby on my mom’s hip there. Then my oldest brother started acting. From there, I wanted to act myself. That’s the long story short. But I had this whole essay about it, and it was very much based on this one-woman show I had done in college that was all about it. That was me explaining to everybody else at NYU why I wasn’t acting anymore. But my editor said to me, “You know, I don’t think we need it.” And I looked at the rest of what we had, and I said, “Yeah, you know, I think you’re right.” We took one or two excerpts from it for the first couple of essays, and for the prologue, but it didn’t feel that it was necessary. I was thinking to myself, “Do I really need to justify this? Do I need to explain this? Do I need to have the beginning, middle, and end of when I started acting, and when I finished? Or is there stuff that I could just leave for people to think about on their own?” And that’s what I did. I wrote about my life in these bits and pieces, and people can get a clear picture of me from that.
AVC: You said in the book that fame never seemed to work in your favor when you were in school. What about now, as an adult?
MW: It doesn’t, really. Every now and then, something really nice will happen. I was getting keys for my apartment, and I asked if I could get doubles, because I’m forgetful, and the woman there said, “Yeah, but it costs $5.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” But then she said, “Actually, you know what, I’m just going to give it to you for free. You were in that movie Mrs. Doubtfire, and that movie really helped me out in a time when I needed it. It got me through something, and it made me laugh when I needed to laugh. So thank you so much for that.” And I was just amazed. That said, nobody’s going to let Matilda into a club, even if I did go clubbing. Nobody cares about that. I do have guys every now and then who say—it’s always guys by the way, it’s never women—who say, “You were my childhood crush, can we date?” And I’m like, “There’s something kind of creepy about that. Do you hear yourself?”
I think in some ways, it did work in my favor. My grades in high school were not very good. I was that kind of perfectionist that figured if you can’t do it perfectly, why do it at all? So my grades weren’t great, but I feel like, is there any other way that I could have gotten into NYU? I don’t know. I think that it definitely worked in my favor in some ways. Do people think I’m cool because I was in a movie when I was a child? No. Well, maybe a little bit more than they used to. There’s definitely a nostalgia factor. Whereas when I was a teenager, other teenagers didn’t want anything to do with me. It was even like that in college to a degree. People of that age don’t want anything to do with their childhood, because they had put away childish things, and they’re trying to distance themselves.
People view child actors the same way that girls treat their Barbie dolls. There’s a reason that girls cut off all their Barbie doll’s hair and dye it and do things like that. I destroyed my Barbie dolls, and I know other girls did as well. And that’s kind of the way they see kids movies and child actors in kids movies, as something that you’ve moved on from. It’s babyish. But now, I’m in my late 20s, and people are coming around to it again. I think they’re realizing how much this stuff affects them. I think all the time about how much Judy Blume affected me, or Beverly Cleary. And I think that now some people are starting to come around and get more of an appreciation for [my stuff].
As for being cool, I don’t know. I’ve never considered myself cool, and I don’t think I ever will be. Honestly, it’s better that way. It’s much less pressure.
QUOTED: "the lyrical and affecting prose. Wilson's perspective is humorous, relatable, and ultimately real. the lyrical and affecting prose. Wilson's perspective is humorous, relatable, and ultimately real."
Wilson, Mara. Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame
Natalie Browning
Library Journal. 141.11 (June 15, 2016): p76.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
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Wilson, Mara. Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame. Penguin. Sept. 2016. 272p. photos. ISBN 9780143128229. pap. $16; ebk. ISBN 9780698407015. FILM
Wilson, of Mrs. Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street, and Matilida fame, proves in this collection of essays that she should be recognized as more than just a former child movie star. The author is a playwright and an oral storyteller, and now in her debut book, she writes about her film career and after. She tells of serious aspects of her life such as her mother's cancer and her own battle with mental illnesses--obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. She also writes about her high school show choir, her first boyfriend, working with funnymen Robin Williams and Danny DeVito, and her dislike of the word "cute." This title is more than just another Hollywood memoir; it is a truly refreshing coming-ofiage story. Some readers will pick up this book because "Matilda" wrote it, but many others should pick it up because of the lyrical and affecting prose. Wilson's perspective is humorous, relatable, and ultimately real. VERDICT Fans of Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy will especially be entertained by Wilson's story of accidental fame.--Natalie Browning, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, VA
QUOTED: "Wilson is a warm narrator, and the challenges she describes facing and working through will likely resonate with those battling mental illness."
Where Am I Now: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame
Publishers Weekly. 263.24 (June 13, 2016): p84.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Where Am I Now: True Stories of Girlhood And Accidental Fame
Mara Wilson. Penguin, $16 trade paper (272p) ISBN 978-0-14-312822-9
Wilson, a 1990s child star (Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire) turned writer and performer, has experienced a great many highs (working with Robin Williams and Danny DeVito) as well as lows (the death of her mother when Wilson was eight) in her young life, and she shares them all with honesty, humor, and humility in this heartfelt portrait. A ham from an early age, she charms the cast and crew on sets where she's often the only child, her stories and curiosity getting laughs; but Wilson is also a worrier who, at seven, is imagining the flowers at her funeral. The highly sensitive child is profoundly affected by the bad behavior of the Melrose Place characters she witnesses during her time on the show, and Hollywood feeds her growing well of anxieties. She becomes fixated on germs and perfectionism, and overly superstitious; later she's diagnosed with OCD. Wilson struggles through the years after the loss of her mother; she's painfully rejected by her industry when she's no longer a cute moppet, and she slowly realizes that she wants to stop acting. But she's still drawn to the spotlight and finds her place on the stages of New York's exploding storytelling scene, becoming the "Ashkenazi Scheherazade." Wilson is a warm narrator, and the challenges she describes facing and working through will likely resonate with those battling mental illness. Agent: Alyssa Reuben, Paradigm Talent Agency. (Sept.)
Mara Wilson shines like a beacon in the witty and touching Where Am I Now?
By Danette Chavez@bonmotvivant
Sep 12, 2016 12:00 AM
Photo: Marcus Nuccio
Photo: Marcus Nuccio
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Where Am I Now?: True Stories Of Girlhood And Accidental Fame
Author: Mara Wilson
Publisher: Penguin Books
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One of the many rites of passage for former child stars is releasing a tell-all book detailing their rapid ascension that’s often all-too-quickly replaced with rejection or humiliation. That isn’t always the case, of course, but it’s a such a common occurrence that it can be a relief to read one that’s candid but not constantly cringe inducing. Mara Wilson, of Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda fame, has released a collection of essays that falls into the latter category, while still featuring plenty of devastating revelations.
About halfway into her memoir, Where Am I Now?: True Stories Of Girlhood And Accidental Fame, Wilson addresses a letter to Matilda, the character she played in Danny DeVito’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl book. In it, Wilson describes her joy in playing the role, while also expounding on her connection to the source material. Matilda may have been among her brothers’ favorite books, but Dahl’s pint-sized creation became a part of Wilson before she’d even read the script.
There might have been a moment when I thought that you, as a character, were mine. That I got to be you, the way I wanted when I first heard of you.
DeVito and Rhea Perlman, who played her parents in the film, turned the set of Matilda into a second home for Wilson in 1995, whose mother died from cancer that same year. The bond between actress and role would be tested in the years to come, as Wilson tried to distance or otherwise distinguish herself from the character. But that brilliant little girl represented the kind of “badass” she always wanted to be, and knew she could be. Wilson ends the letter by thanking Matilda for giving her and so many other children hope, while lighting a beacon for the brainy and anxious with her own published work.
The fact that Wilson made it through childhood stardom mostly intact would be inspirational enough on its own, but she’s found a second career since “outgrowing her cuteness.” She’s now a playwright and the host of her own storytelling series, with a sharp wit that she doles out on her must-read Twitter account. But that’s hardly a surprising outcome because, as Wilson reveals early on, she’s always been a storyteller. Long before she portrayed one of literature’s most beloved characters, Wilson was spinning yarns for her family and friends, though she admits she could have used an editor.
The adult Wilson has a similarly expansive approach to storytelling, moving in and out of anecdotes as if she were playing a game of word association with herself. A story that begins with a 5-year-old Wilson can wander into a scene from her teen years, then snap back in time at the remembrance of something else from her past. But in each reverie, she establishes a strong sense of time and place with savvy pop-culture references and their real-life inspirations (the John Burroughs High School serves as the setting for Wilson’s own precursor to Glee). The author also has a firm grasp of her themes, so these tangents serve as flourishes rather than distractions.
My sister and I have the same roundabout, digressive, all over the place way of talking, jumping from A to B to Z and then back to C and D. Sometimes my friends get confused, but Anna always gets it, and I always get her.
Where Am I Now? wouldn’t be much of a memoir without some insider info, but Wilson’s not interested in recounting salacious stories from the set. It’s not likely that she has any, since she stopped acting in her teens. She also reveals she once appointed herself a one-child “anti-sex league” after learning about sex and the casual attitude toward it held by the fictional inhabitants of Fox’s Melrose Place, on which she had a recurring role. What Wilson does divulge is how long she struggled with the “Matilda-whore complex,” and the proprietary way that fans of the Matilda film and book still feel about the character.
No one, Wilson tells us, wants to think of Matilda—or the actress who played her—and sex. But while the character may be ageless, Wilson’s now a 29-year-old woman, who’s been through puberty and college. And the industry’s (as well as fans’) desire to preserve the precocious little girl she once played did real, though not irreversible, damage to the young girl she once was. When those efforts failed and casting agents didn’t know what to make of the self-described angsty teen, Wilson was left to reinvent herself.
That turned out to be a more difficult undertaking than she could have anticipated, made all the more difficult by losing her mother at a young age. But she muddled through, even though her depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder manifested before she hit puberty. Wilson has been forthcoming about the mental health issues she details in her memoir, and has even partnered with Project UROK for a video about living with—and getting help for—anxiety. Just as Wilson once identified with Dahl’s adorable little bookworm, so too will readers of her memoir, who may be dealing with mental health issues of their own, find hope in her revelations.
QUOTED: "This funny, at times painful, but always honest book tells a coming-of-age story that is not only entertaining, but also wise."
"a readably candid, sharp memoir."
WHERE AM I NOW?
True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame
by Mara Wilson
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KIRKUS REVIEW
A 20-something playwright and actor’s memoir about her childhood journey to Hollywood fame and teenage descent into contented semiobscurity.
Wilson began acting at age 5. After pestering her mother to let her do commercials like her older brother, she was soon called to audition for a part in the Robin Williams vehicle Mrs. Doubtfire. Her role in that film led to appearances on TV shows like Melrose Place and in movies like Miracle on 34th Street and Matilda, a film with which she would become permanently identified. Yet from an early age, Wilson realized that her cuteness, compared to Shirley Temple’s audience-pleasing good looks, could render her susceptible to the kind of studio control that Temple had faced. “Everyone in the world [would know] a version of Mara Wilson that wasn’t me at all,” she writes. By the time she was a teenager, the looks that had brought her early fame could not compete with those of other young actresses like Kristen Stewart and Scarlett Johansson. Refusing to use cosmetic surgery to try to save a career she questioned, Wilson began to focus more on dealing with who she was: a girl with deep fears and compulsions that had emerged in childhood and had begun affecting her daily life and relationships. Despite her disenchantment with Hollywood, she retained a love of performing, which she continued to do as a student at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and which she eventually merged with another childhood love: storytelling. Immersing herself in a community that included other storytellers, stand-up comedians, and burlesque show performers who showed her the power and joy in “liv[ing] your fear,” the author at last found herself, “her people,” and her creative stride. This funny, at times painful, but always honest book tells a coming-of-age story that is not only entertaining, but also wise. Learning the lessons of self-acceptance and finding strength in vulnerability is often the best success of all.
A readably candid, sharp memoir.
Pub Date: Sept. 13th, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-312822-9
Page count: 272pp
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: July 4th, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15th, 2016
QUOTED: "This isn’t a downbeat book. It’s not always an easy one to read (and there’s a real sense it’s not been an easy life to live), but there’s richness, and humanity, and an awful lot of wit."
"Mara Wilson is a beautiful writer, a natural storyteller, and Where Am I Now? is a testament to that."
Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson: Book Review
Mara Wilson's book, on life, mental health, being a child star in the movies and simply growing up, is one to treasure.
REVIEW
Simon Brew
Oct 10, 2016
0 COMMENTS
This article comes from Den of Geek UK.
There are some utterly chilling passages in Mara Wilson’s book, Where Am I Now? True Stories Of Girlhood And Accidental Fame. The tome is Wilson’s memoir of sorts, collected in chapters where she deals with certain topics that have been pertinent throughout her 29 years. As it turns out, there are lots and lots of pertinent topics, and a sense at the heart of it of someone who’s clung onto her humanity and moral compass, in the face of at-times mind-boggling difficulties.
Furthermore, it’s clear that Wilson is very much the author here. There’s a craft and care in her words, and a voice that comes through, that displays a very enviable talent for getting what’s in her head compelling onto the page.
Wilson sprung to fame when she wasn’t even 10 years old, off the back of films such as Mrs. Doubtfire and – of course – Matilda. She talks about those times, sharing moments such as asking Doubtfire director Chris Columbus with alarming regularity as to when he’s going to conquer America, and her time in the company of Robin Williams. And she takes us through effectively her falling out of love with high profile acting roles, along with them falling out with her. There’s a moment she describes on the set of Thomas And The Magic Railroad, where the director took her aside to talk about her naturally growing up because it was affecting the work, that I couldn’t help but wonder how someone actually processes that.
Not that such moments have been confined to Wilson’s childhood and teenage years. Perhaps the most chilling passage here, haunting in its matter-of-factness really, is where she recalls the time when she saw on the internet a list of ‘ugliest former child actors’. On this one particular occasion, she decided to get in touch with the author, to ask why she “punished other women for the way they look,” The author of said piece replied that she was sorry, but that "I write stupid things on the internet to pay the bills. I can’t afford integrity.”
There are many moments I found reading Wilson’s book that stopped me in my tracks. A few times out of shock at the sheer unpleasantness of people, a few times as tears welled up in my eyes when she talked about the loss of her mother, a compelling reminder that no matter how much someone is in the public eye, you only – rightfully – know a fraction of their story. And then a few too as Wilson describes essentially how she found the person she wanted to be, and how that countered with the impression people sustained due to her early acting work.
For all the moments I’ve described above, this isn’t a downbeat book. It’s not always an easy one to read (and there’s a real sense it’s not been an easy life to live), but there’s richness, and humanity, and an awful lot of wit. I tore through it in one or two sittings, and found myself rooting for Wilson in little time. And her dad, too.
Mara Wilson is a beautiful writer, a natural storyteller, and Where Am I Now? is a testament to that. There are inevitable comparisons being drawn by algorithm-driven online shopping stores with books by Amy Schumer and Lena Dunham. Let’s face it, too: that’s an impressive basket to take out of the book shop. But it’s an imperfect Venn diagram. Wilson has different stories to tell, different ways of telling them, and a warm, inclusive way of writing that makes this one of the best books I’ve read this year.
QUOTED: "All of the stories here have a strong sense of humour to them, and Mara is a skilled enough writer to easily make an empathic connection with the reader, the shortness of the chapters meaning that one is never stuck in a period for too long, but moves swiftly between different periods in the writer's life."
Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson
Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson
Category: Autobiography
Rating: 5/5
Reviewer: Luke Marlowe
Reviewed by Luke Marlowe
Summary: Moving, laugh-out-loud funny, and cuttingly incisive, Where Am I Now is a tale of growing from a child star into an adult, and from fame to relative obscurity – filled with timely essays on how growing up in the public eye can shape a person, as well as the pratfalls of being a woman in our modern world, this is proof that, whilst she may not have the telekinetic powers of her character Matilda, Mara Wilson is an incredibly talented author.
Buy? Yes Borrow? Yes
Pages: 272 Date: September 2016
Publisher: Penguin Books
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9780143128229
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Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and a little out of place: as the only child on a film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, the sole clinically depressed member of a cheerleading squad, a valley girl in New York and a neurotic in California, and an adult the world still remembers as a little girl. Tackling everything from how she first learned about sex on the set of Melrose Place, to losing her mother at a young age, to getting her first kiss (or was it kisses?) on a celebrity canoe trip, to not being cute enough to make it in Hollywood, these essays tell the story of one young woman's journey from accidental fame to relative obscurity, but also illuminate a universal struggle: learning to accept yourself, and figuring out who you are and where you belong.
Hands up who else wanted to be Matilda when they were a child? Sure, growing up with terrible parents would not be fun, but the end result of having telepathic powers (albeit briefly), and getting to live with the delightful Miss Honey seemed rather appealing as a child. The film of Matilda came out when I was 8, and it's safe to say had a very big impact on the shy, bookish child I once was. So I was rather excited to read Mara Wilson's first book, given that she was the actress who portrayed Matilda in the film, and also starred in Mrs Doubtfire – another film which I watched on an almost daily basis as a child. I'd heard bits and pieces about Mara in recent years – her twittering and writing shining a spotlight on her once again, so I was very keen to take a look at her essays.
Firstly, these are not essays in a dry, academic sense – but they aren't mere autobiographical musings – through tales of her life, Mara touches on issues like child bereavement, mental illness and the perils of adult dating in an accessible and relatable way. All of the stories here have a strong sense of humour to them, and Mara is a skilled enough writer to easily make an empathic connection with the reader, the shortness of the chapters meaning that one is never stuck in a period for too long, but moves swiftly between different periods in the writer's life. Some sections are not a particularly easy read either – reading about a child being bereaved is hard, and learning about how Mara struggled to deal with her OCD as a teenager can be tough at times, but the wit and warmth of the writing ensures that it is never a chore.
Those wanting nuggets and glimpses about Mara's film career will find them too – (the tribute to Robin Williams is particularly touching), but, for me, the most fascinating part was the look at how the outside world judges a child star – constantly preventing them from truly growing up, and infantilising them at an unhealthily late age. Heck, I can't deny that even I felt briefly uncomfortable learning about the author going on dates or having sex – when I started this book the Mara Wilson in my minds eye was a young girl, but, by the time I put the book down, I could see her as a clever, warm and witty woman.
In truth, I'd recommend these be read by everyone – they're funny, moving and enlightening, and whilst it helps to have known of Mara from her performances as a child, it's not essential – Mara's writing is good enough to appeal to all, although I can't deny that I felt a particular connection to it. Speaking as someone who used to be a bookish, shy kid suffering with social anxiety, finding out that an actress who I adored as a child went through similar problems was welcome and refreshing. In Roald Dahl's Matilda, he said that … Matilda's strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone
And that, in her brilliant book, is exactly the message that Mara Wilson has sent out too.
Many thanks to the publishers for the copy. For further reading I would recommend – An Education by Lynn Barber - completely different worlds, but filled with the same candid humour and warm wit.
Booklists.jpg Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson is in the Top Ten Autobiographies and Biographies 2016.
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Buy Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson at Amazon You can read more book reviews or buy Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson at Amazon.com.
QUOTED: "Where Am I Now? is a great read – something you can pick up and put down or read all the way through, something everyone can find something to identify with, and overall, it’s totally enjoyable and interesting."
"Her style flows so naturally, like she’s talking to you, and it’s really funny and poignant. She could make the smallest things sound interesting. She’s so in touch with her memories and feelings that they just jump off the page."
Book Review: Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson
BY JESSICA // SEPTEMBER 30, 2016 // NO COMMENTS
where am i now mara wilson via paper trail diary
Where Am I Now? by Mara Wilson, via Penguin, out now.
[I received this book from Penguin Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review; this did not affect my opinion of the book whatsoever.]
Ok, let’s get the basics out of the way. Most of you will know Mara Wilson from her portrayal of Matilda or her role in Mrs. Doubtfire. You may or may not know that since those many years ago, she’s grown up to be a great writer, comedian, retweeter and voice actor. Though it did feel kind of random to hear about her doing a memoir of sorts, I was excited about it from the get go. Of course I want to know more about what it was like to be Matilda, one of the biggest bookworm icons! Of course I’d be interested in finding out what she’s been up to! Of course I’d want to read more of her genuine and comedic voice! And these wants are exactly what play into the premise of Mara’s book of personal essays. And I was not disappointed! I really like Mara’s writing style and hope to see much more in the future. She was in Toronto for press and events this week and I was lucky to see her do a Q&A and signing at Indigo. She is such a wonderful presence to be around – she seems comfortable, happy, and interested in everyone. Plus, she’s as much of an eloquent speaker as she is a writer. Where Am I Now? is a great read – something you can pick up and put down or read all the way through, something everyone can find something to identify with, and overall, it’s totally enjoyable and interesting.
So here are 5 reasons why you need to read Mara’s book of essays.
1. Memories of being an existential kid are hilarious.
I wish I had as good of a memory of my childhood as Mara does. There’s one essay about how she was such an existential kid, going through her years, and it probably cracked me up more than any other essay. Here’s a passage from age five:
My kindergarten class goes to an assembly on astronomy. The astronomer, in an attempt to make science more exciting, plays up the danger in the universe. When he talks about solar flares, I am convinced that come the next solar flare, fire will rain down from the sky and incinerate us all. By the time he moves on to all the ways the planet Venus could kill a human being, I am sobbing hysterically.
None of the other kids are crying, and I wonder if I’m the only one who understands. If this is what it is to be special, it’s terrible. Several kindergarten aids take me aside to try to calm me down. When it doesn’t work, they give me a rice cake and call my mother.
‘Maybe you were scared because you were getting something out of it the other kids weren’t,’ she tells me when she picks me up. ‘The other kids just thought, ‘Oh, Venus, it’s a planet,’ but you were making connections they weren’t. Maybe you really love astronomy?’
I don’t think she’s right.
2. She understands what it means to be called ‘cute.’
As a child actor, or as someone who has a baby face, the word cute could be good or bad. And there’s always a time in your life when cute is very bad, because you want to be more than that. You want people to see your maturity, not as a thing to hug. In her essay “the ‘c’ word,” Mara explains how being cute was just one of the many reasons why she was falling out of love with Hollywood, especially as she was a pretty dark and kind of edgy kid. In a scene where she discovered she was being scouted to be ‘the next Shirley Temple’:
We watched Bright Eyes and The Little Princess and I thought about how I’d say no to this. Shirley Temple was so cute, she didn’t quite seem real. Did I admire her? Yes. Did I want to be her? No. My mother knew, and I was starting to sense, that being cute meant being controlled, and that being the next Shirley Temple would mean everyone in the world knowing a version of Mara Wilson that wasn’t me at all.
3. She’s a strong advocate for mental health.
I don’t think I knew much on this before I read the book, so it was a pleasant surprise to read so much about Mara’s experience with depression, anxiety and OCD. She explained how it felt really well, and it made my heart ache to experience it along with her again, to think of this kid being totally confused as to why she was feeling so different and upset all the time, and why she felt like she couldn’t tell anyone about it. Now, Mara will candidly talk about her experience, being on medication, and how important it is for people (especially child actors) to go to therapy, which I really admire.
4. She gives a funny, personal and smart look at what it’s like to be a child actor.
Normally your first thought about ‘child actors’ is something along the lines of look now they are a recovering alcoholic, can’t get any work and just seem sad, right? Because that’s what we’re fed through weird slideshows online and entertainment tv. Mara acknowledges this throughout the book, pokes fun at it a little bit, and shows how her growing up was nothing like that at all. She’ll reference kids she hung out with (at her event this week, someone asked if she still hangs out with Hilary Duff) and the silly things they did. She was just a kid who liked acting, but liked other things, then a teenager who went through an awkward phase, and then someone who wasn’t comfortable in Hollywood and wanted to come at it from a different angle. Respect!
5. She’s just a really good writer.
Her style flows so naturally, like she’s talking to you, and it’s really funny and poignant. She could make the smallest things sound interesting. She’s so in touch with her memories and feelings that they just jump off the page. And like I said, I hope there will be more to read in the future!
Have you read Where Am I Now? What do you think?
Mara Wilson's Where Am I Now?: 9 revelations
MADELINE RAYNOR@MADELINERAYNOR_
POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2016 AT 12:00PM EST
Mara Wilson, the former child actor known for playing Matilda, channels her love of storytelling into her first book Where Am I Now?, a collection of autobiographical stories, out Tuesday.
She talks about her experience as a young actor in Hollywood, playing the aforementioned beloved role, working with Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, and transitioning from an actor to a writer and storyteller. Her book is full of show business revelations: stories from on set, going on auditions, meeting famous people, and more. Here are nine of the most memorable revelations from Where Am I Now?.
1. On working with Robin Williams on Mrs. Doubtfire…
“I always looked up to Robin. It seems like everyone around me did, too. On the set of Doubtfire, a fourteen-year-old Danny had, after weeks of being too nervous, asked Robin, ‘What is it that makes you hold your audience so well? How do you do it?’ Robin smiled and responded, ‘It’s very simple, really. It’s what you leave in and what you put out.’ Not leave out and put in, but leave in and put out.”
2. On being babysat by Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman during Mrs. Doubtfire…
“I was welcome at their house whenever I felt like it. And I loved it there: they had a trampoline, a pool and hot tub, a pinball machine, a tiny movie theater in a guesthouse, amazing food at any time of day or night, a room dedicated just to art projects, all kinds of pets, and best of all, three secret passageways. It was a kid’s paradise, and something of a refuge at a time when I really needed it. The weekend my mother had a mastectomy, Danny and Rhea let me sleep over at their place, and I had so much fun I completely forgot she was in the hospital.”
3. On a having a bad experience with a journalist she was a kid…
On the red carpet at the premiere of 1995’s Nine Months, a journalist asked her if she’d heard about Hugh Grant getting arrested. “‘I, uh… Yes, I heard he was arrested.’ It was all over the news. ‘So what’s going on there, huh? What happened? What do you think?’ ‘I…’ All I knew was that it had something to do with sex. Suddenly, I felt very small. I looked away, trying to see if I would find my mother. ‘I don’t know.'”
4. Why she had a problem with her Miracle on 34th Street character being labelled as “cute”…
Wilson writes that her mother was annoyed that the changes that were being made for the sake of cuteness. “‘Why is she wearing a hair ribbon to bed?’ ‘Well, you know,’ [director Les Mayfield] would say. ‘It’s cute.’ I could sense the disappointment. They were making Susan as cute as possible, and taking away what had drawn me to her—her intelligence and complexity. She was becoming a caricature.”
5. Fox wanted her to be the next Shirley Temple…
“There was also a large box addressed to me, which my mother opened. ‘What is it?’ I asked her. ‘It’s Shirley Temple movies, from Fox,’ she said. ‘They’re saying they want you to be the next Shirley Temple….’ Did I admire her? Yes. Did I want to be her? No. My mother knew and I was starting to sense, that being cute meant being controlled.”
6. On growing up in Burbank…
“My father worked as an electronics engineer at CBS, NBC, and the local channel KTLA. Classmates came to school in cars with license plate frames reading ‘PART OF THE MAGIC: WALT DISNEY COMPANY,’ and my brothers would borrow movie screeners from friends with well-connected parents when we didn’t want to wait for video. Given the omnipresence of the entertainment industry, getting into acting wasn’t an unusual thing for a Burbank kid to do.”
7. On meeting Scarlett Johansson when they were both child actors…
“I watched her pull a balloon off a display, suck in the helium, and sing, ‘We’re the Chipmunks! C-H-I-P-M-U-N-K-S!’ She wasn’t in such a serious mood anymore, and it made me like her more. There was something very attractive about her, a kind of cool older sister vibe, and I wanted to be her friend.”
8. On having to wear a sports bra for Thomas and the Magic Railroad after going through puberty…
“‘I know it’s embarrassing, but you really can see the difference,’ [my on set caretaker] said gently. I nodded and looked down at the floor again, tears stinging my face.”
9. On passing on Arrested Development…
“After a year of no callbacks, my father said what we had both been thinking. ‘Maybe you should just focus on school right now.’ It would mean having to pass up some great scripts I was getting—like an ‘experimental’ comedy series called Arrested Development—but it was the right move.”