Mara Wilson won over hearts all across the world in the early 1990s with her endearing portrayals of the lively little girl in well-known movies like Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th Street.
Wilson, now 37, seemed set for more success as she celebrated her birthday on July 24. But as she grew older, her on-screen persona diminished and she disappeared from the public eye.
“Hollywood was done with me,” she says, looking back on her career. You are viewed as useless if you are no longer cute or attractive.
When five-year-old Mara Wilson played Robin Williams’ youngest child in Mrs. Doubtfire in 1993, she received millions of dollars.
The California native has only appeared in advertisements prior to this breakthrough role. Her youthful career took a significant turn when she was given the chance to feature in one of Hollywood’s highest-grossing comedies.
Despite their pride, my parents helped me stay grounded. When I would say something like, “I’m the greatest!” my mother would correct me, saying that I was only an actor. “You’re a child,” remarks Wilson, 37.
After making her film debut, she was cast in the 1994 Miracle on 34th Street remake as Susan Walker, who was first played by Natalie Wood in 1947.
“I read my lines for the production team and told them I didn’t believe in Santa Claus,” Wilson writes in an essay for The Guardian about her audition. “But I did believe in the tooth fairy and had named mine after Sally Field,” she continues, referring to the Oscar-winning actress who portrayed her mother in Mrs. Doubtfire.
Wilson costarred with Danny DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman, in the 1996 film Matilda, playing the part of the magical girl.
Suzie, her mother, passed away from breast cancer in the same year.
Wilson spoke on her deep sorrow, saying, “I didn’t really know who I was.Before that, I was someone else, and after that, I was someone else. Wilson describes the intense pain she had through after losing her mother as follows: “She was like this omnipresent thing in my life.” “I found it kind of overwhelming,” she adds. I mostly just wanted to be a typical child, especially when my mother passed away. The young celebrity acknowledged that, in spite of her notoriety, she was “the most unhappy” at the time and expressed fatigue.
Wilson unwillingly accepted her last significant role at the age of eleven in the fantasy adventure movie “Thomas and the Magic Railroad” from 2000. “The characters were too young,” she recalls when she first read the script. I reacted viscerally to [the] script when I was eleven.I thought, ugh. “How adorable,” she says, “The Guardian.”
But she wasn’t the only one who decided to leave Hollywood. Wilson experienced a paucity of roles as a teenager as he went through puberty and outgrew the “cute” stage.
“Just another awkward, nerdy, loud girl with bad teeth and bad hair, whose bra strap was always showing,” is how she characterizes herself.
When she was 13, she admits, “I hadn’t been called cute or had my appearance mentioned in years, at least not in a positive way.”
Wilson had to deal with the demands of celebrity and the challenges of growing up in the spotlight. She was profoundly affected by her changing image.
She muses, “I had this Hollywood notion that you are worthless if you are no longer cute or attractive. Because I directly linked that to my career’s downfall. It doesn’t feel nice to be rejected, even if I was kind of burned out on it and Hollywood was burned out on me.
Wilson, who is currently a writer, published her first novel, “Where Am I Now? In 2016, the book “True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame” was released.
From the lessons she learnt about sex on the set of “Melrose Place” to her discovery in adolescence that she was no longer considered “cute” enough for Hollywood, the book covers a wide range of subjects. Her journey from accidental stardom to a more humble but contented obscurity is chronicled in these pieces.
In addition, she wrote the biography Good Girls Don’t, which explores her experiences as a young actress trying to live up to expectations.
In her essay for the Guardian, she says, “Being cute just made me miserable.” “I always assumed that I would stop acting, not the other way around.”
