Mara Wilson Talks The Sometimes 'Creepy' Downsides Of Being In Matilda

As everyone knows, being a child star is a pretty perilous business.

Mara Wilson knows this better than most, having appeared in movies like ‘Mrs Doubtfire’, ‘Miracle On 34th Street’ and ‘Matilda’, all before she was 10-years-old.

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In fact, some of the negatives still seem to follow her around today.

“It is strange to have everybody in the world still think of you as a child. That has definitely been something that is hard,” she told The A.V. Club.

“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. People imagined that I was her.

“We had things in common, but I was never a prodigy. I was never a child genius. … 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.”

“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?”

Though something she experienced in her most formative years, she adds that she has ‘made her peace’ with what the role brought her, though some people who approach her are flat-out creepy.

“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,” she said.

“I do have guys every now and then 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?’”

Nice.

Wilson has written about her experiences in new book, ‘Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame’.

Image credits: Yahoo File