Line #21 Creator/MaraWilson


1	%%
2	%% Image selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16994657610.66810500
3	%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
4	%%
5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mara_wilson_where_am_i_now.png]]
6	[[caption-width-right:350:From an adorable child actor to a witty writer and storyteller.]]
7
8	->''"Don't fuck with Mara Wilson!"''
9	-->-- '''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'''
10
11	Mara Elizabeth Wilson (born July 24, 1987 in Burbank, California) is an American actress and writer.
12
13	Wilson rose to prominence as a child actor in [[TheNineties '90s]] films, and is best known as the titular character in [[Film/{{Matilda}} the feature film adaptation]] of Creator/RoaldDahl's ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'', Susan Walker in ''Film/MiracleOn34thStreet'', Natalie Hillard in ''Film/MrsDoubtfire'', Annabel Greening in ''Film/ASimpleWish'', and Lily Stone in ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad''. She retired from film acting shortly after her appearance in ''Magic Railroad'' after coming to the conclusion that, in her own words, "film acting is not very fun"[[note]]To elaborate a bit, she stated that she found the experience of directors making her "[do] the same thing over and over again" until she gave a performance to their liking to be creatively stifling[[/note]].
14
15	Following this decision, Wilson entered stage acting. She returned to on-screen acting in 2012 with a focus on web series, notably appearing on several Website/ChannelAwesome shows where she reprised her role of Matilda as an adult (for WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick's review of the film) and revealed that she has unholy powers that she will use to punish those who blindly mock her. (According to [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]], she obtained these powers from [[{{God}} God Himself]].)
16
17	Wilson has also worked in a number of voice roles including a recurring role on ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'' as The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, Jill Pill in ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'', and Liv Amara/Diane Amara in ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries''. She made a brief return to TV acting in a 2016 episode of ''Series/BroadCity'' inspired by ''Mrs. Doubtfire''.
18
19	Another main venture for Wilson is writing. On top of being a playwright since college and having a play titled ''Sheeple'' produced in 2013, she published her first book, ''Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame'', in 2016. She also writes a blog, "[[https://mara.substack.com/ Shan’t We Tell The Vicar?]]", to which she often posts humorous stories and the like. Her [[https://twitter.com/marawilson Twitter feed]] is similarly humorous. She's [[http://www.cracked.com/members/MaraWilson/ also written]] for Website/{{Cracked}}.
20
21	Evidently, she's well aware of the existence of Website/TVTropes, too, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200130220333/http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/top-girl-the-game-for-everyone/ having mentioned]] ArtisticLicensePhysics (back when [[Administrivia/RenamedTropes it was known as]] You Fail Physics Forever) [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200122093136/http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com/an-essay-about-me-by-jenny-donoghue/ and]] CloudCuckoolander, as well as a tendency to check this page. (Hi, Mara! We're happy you exist!)
22	----
23	!!Associated tropes:
24	* AbilityOverAppearance: For the remake of ''Miracle on 34th Street'', filmmakers considered giving the child a GenderFlip to be a boy. But someone recommended Mara for the part and after an audition, they cast her.
25	* ActorInspiredElement: The doll that Matilda waves at during the "Little Bitty Pretty One" sequence was designed by Mara herself.
26	* AdamWesting: Usually, when an actor engages in this they're playing a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} variation of themselves. Mara Wilson's idea (at least when it comes to Channel Awesome) of this is to [[MemeticMutation WIELD UNHOLY POWERS FROM BEYOND OUR REALM!!]]
27	* AwesomeDearBoy: She was a huge fan of Roald Dahl's novel ''Matilda'' and jumped at the chance to play the title character in a film.
28	* BigApplesauce: She graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2009; she continued to live in New York City until 2017, when she moved back to her native California. She performed spoken-word and comedy shows (notably ''What Are You Afraid Of?'') at NYC nightclubs, her play ''Sheeple'' enjoyed a run there, and she often [[Website/{{Twitter}} tweeted]] and blogged about her experiences in the city when she lived there.
29	* CareerResurrection: She seldom acts nowadays and is focused primarily on her writing, but her appearance on ''Nostalgia Critic'' got a lot of people interested in her life after [[FormerChildStar child stardom]].
30	* ClarkKenting: In the Nostalgia Chick's ''Matilda'' review. Disguised with her hair in a bun and a thick pair of glasses.
31	* ConvertedFanboy: Once convinced that Creator/{{Doug\|Walker}} was an asshole because of awful fans of his harassing her, ended up becoming practically an honorary Website/ChannelAwesome member and ([[WeUsedToBeFriends for a time]]) good friends with both him and Creator/{{Lindsay\|Ellis}}.
32	* ContractualPurity: People are thrown off that Matilda now has... filled out in her adult years. She's joked that it's only a matter of time before someone accuses her of ruining their childhood because of her boobs. On a different note, people assumed that because she was in family friendly movies that her play ''Sheeple'' was also family friendly. She [[WordOfGod has described]] the phenomenon, at least where fans' reactions to her figure or adult discussions of her sexuality (even before her outing) are concerned, with some humor, in both interviews and her memoirs as "[[MadonnaWhoreComplex the Matilda/Whore Complex]]". She did however say in her autobiography that her parents had a rule that she could only star in family friendly movies. She also felt pressure to not be seen drinking or getting rowdy at parties out of fear of upsetting her kid fanbase.
33	* CreatorBacklash: ''Film/MiracleOnThirtyFourthStreet'', mainly because Susan was rewritten a lot during filming. She was conceived as a more interesting and intelligent child, but they kept dropping these traits to emphasize her cuteness. A lot of critics had a SweetnessAversion reaction, which Mara herself agrees with.
34	* TheDreaded: When she shows up in Channel Awesome content, she generally appears as this.
35	* DueToTheDead: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200219223059/http://marawilsonwritesstuff.com:80/remembering-robin/ Her essay "Remembering Robin"]], written to honor the late Robin Williams.
36	-->"We're all his goddamn kids, too."
37	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Her internet persona may be an evil revenge-hungry she-demon, but she doesn't hate kids.
38	* GodNeverSaidThat: Despite people claiming the opposite, she is not ashamed of ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad''. She claimed she had fun making it, and loved working with everyone on it. Most of her bad feelings about working on it comes from the fact that she had begun puberty shortly before filming began, so her breasts were developing around the time they did re-shoots -- which didn't help her issues with body image.
39	* IAmNotSpock: Apparently, people she encounters still call her Film/{{Matilda}}, prompting her to remind them that Matilda doesn't exist. She's been at some pains to emphasize that her overly perky, precocious film characters are quite different from her real personality, even back then. But she has said that Matilda was very close to her real personality, which is one of the reasons she wanted to play her in the first place.
40	* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Yes, [[https://twitter.com/MaraWilson/status/878702159344263168 she's well aware]] of the "Film/{{Matilda}} grew up to be [[Literature/{{Carrie}} Carrie White]]" fan theory, no need to parrot it at her.
41	* OverlyNarrowSuperlative:
42	** She has a lot in common with Creator/DanielRadcliffe. She once tweeted:
43	--->Hey, who's your favorite short, half-Irish and half Jewish (but secular), dark-haired light-eyed former child actor with a severe nickel allergy who played the title character from a beloved British children's book about a child with magic powers? Me, right?\
44	DAMMIT RADCLIFFE
45	** Mara would often refer to herself and her family in interviews and social media as coming from an "upper lower middle class" economic background.
46	* PlayingAgainstType: She played the BigBad of ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries''' second season, Liv Amara, after a career playing cute children ([[WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond occasionally with magical powers]]) and heroic supporting characters... though this is averted if you know her better from [[AdamWesting her appearances]] in Channel Awesome, where she, like the aforementioned character, is [[MemeticMutation not to be fucked with]].
47	* PromotedFanboy:
48	** She's [[WordOfGod mentioned in an]] [[http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/04-2013/being-matilda_64967.html online Theatermania article]] that ''Literature/{{Matilda}}'' was a favorite book of hers from early childhood, and that as soon as Mara's agent mentioned over the phone to her mother that a script called ''Matilda'' was submitted among the flood of scripts on her desk, her mother immediately asked for the script, knowing how much Mara loved the book.
49	** She starred as a waitress as a background character in an episode of ''Series/BroadCity''.
50	* RemakeCameo: She declined the suggestion to play Miss Honey in the musical version of ''Matilda'', but said she was open to having a cameo if they made a film.
51	* SheIsAllGrownUp: She jokes about how her figure filling out from puberty tends to throw people a bit.
52	-->'''Nella:''' Holy shit, Matilda! You've got a great rack!
53	* {{Troll}}: When Twitter removed the character limit on names, she changed hers to 'Mara "Get Rid of the Nazis" Wilson'.
54	** The rename was also a TakeThat to Website/{{Twitter}} for their lax record on deleting white supremacist/racist/pro-Nazi/race-baiting accounts on the website, in spite of their policies against such accounts.
55	* {{Tuckerization}}: For whatever reasons she has gotten roles for characters who have [[DownplayedTrope her name inside their name]] more than once: The {{Psychic Child\|ren}} Ta'''mara''' in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' and the EvilutionaryBiologist Liv A'''mara''' in ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries''.
56	* VacationDearBoy: She opted to make ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad'' to visit the UK.
57	* WeUsedToBeFriends: Wrote in a blog post that she fell out with a content creator she didn't name, but was clearly implied to be Creator/LindsayEllis, over the latter gatekeeping Mara on being bisexual. Ellis later confirmed their falling out, but suggested that was only one of several things that came between them.
58	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
59	** She was sent the script to ''Film/DonnieDarko'' but was ill at the time and got freaked out, so she turned it down.
60	** She auditioned to play the dual roles in Disney's remake of ''Film/{{The Parent Trap\|1998}}'' but was turned down for being too young.
61	** She really lobbied hard to play Sam in ''The Safety of Objects'', wanting to break away from children's movies. She was however deemed too voluptuous for the androgynous character, and asked to read for the more feminine friend. She didn't get either.
62	** In her autobiography, it says right after she retired from acting, she turned down a part in an 'experimental' comedy series called ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment''. (Possibly the part that eventually went to Creator/MaeWhitman, who was born the year after Mara?)
63	** She has mentioned many times on her Twitter account, as well as ''Where Am I Now?'', of auditioning for many of the roles that would eventually go to a younger Creator/KristenStewart, including ''Film/CatchThatKid'' and the aforementioned ''The Safety of Objects''.
64	** She turned down the script for ''Film/BarneysGreatAdventure''.
65
66	!!Works Include
67	* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' (the episode "Mind Games")
68	* ''Film/{{Matilda}}''
69	* ''Film/MiracleOnThirtyFourthStreet'' (the 1994 remake)
70	* ''Film/ASimpleWish''
71	* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad'': Lily Stone
72	* ''Film/MrsDoubtfire'': Nattie Hillard
73	* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic'' (the [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/35109-a-simple-wish review]] of ''A Simple Wish'')
74	* ''WebVideo/DemoReel'' (the episode "Lost In Translation (Bromance Version)")
75	* ''Shut Up and Talk'' (guest of first episode)
76	* ''WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick'' (the [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/36832-matilda review]] of ''Matilda''. ''[[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/42581-nostalgic-foods-of-yore-feat-mara-wilson Nostalgic Foods]]'', and she also [[http://www.formspring.me/ElisaInTime/q/365855450928801027 apparently]] helped out with the ''Charlie's Angels'' [[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/nostalgia-chick/36358-charlies-angels review]].
77	* ''{{Website/Cracked}}''
78	* ''Podcast/WelcomeToNightVale'': Recurring as The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home.
79	* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': Jill Pill
80	* ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6TheSeries'': Liv Amara
81	* ''WebAnimation/OllieAndScoops'' : [[https://twitter.com/NicoColaleo/status/1286596924645109760 The Creepy Girl]]
82	* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': Mrs. Mayberry

Context Creator / MaraWilson