The world first fell in love with the endearing Mara Wilson in the early 1990s. She was a child actor best remembered for her roles as the bright young girl in beloved family films like Miracle on 34th Street and Mrs. Doubtfire.
The rising actress, who turned 37 on July 24, looked like she was ready for big things, but as she got older, she lost her “cute” factor and vanished from the big screen.
She continues, “If you’re not cute anymore, if you’re not beautiful, then you are worthless. Hollywood was burned out on me.”
To find out what happened to Wilson, continue reading!
When five-year-old Mara Wilson played Robin Williams’ youngest kid in Mrs. Doubtfire in 1993, she won over millions of fans’ hearts.
When the California native was invited to feature in one of the highest-grossing comedies in Hollywood history, she had already made appearances in advertisements.
“My parents were proud of me, but they also grounded me.” If I ever said, “I’m the greatest!” my mother would always tell me that I’m simply an actor. The now 37-year-old Wilson said, “You’re just a kid.”
After making her big screen debut, she was chosen to play Susan Walker in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), which was the same role Natalie Wood had played in 1947.
In her essay for the Guardian, Wilson said of her audition, “I read my lines for the production team and told them I didn’t believe in Santa Claus.” She says, “But I did believe in the tooth fairy and had named mine after Sally Field,” alluding to the actress who won an Oscar for playing her mother in Mrs. Doubtfire.
“Really dissatisfied”
Wilson then played the magical girl alongside Danny DeVito and his real-life wife, Rhea Perlman, in the 1996 movie Matilda.
That same year, her mother Suzie also lost her battle with breast cancer.
“I wasn’t entirely certain who I was.That was the difference between who I was before and after. Wilson says of her intense grief after her mother passed away, “She was like this omnipresent thing in my life.”She goes on, “I found it kind of overwhelming.” Mostly, especially after my mother passed away, all I wanted was to be a regular child.
The young girl says that when she got “very famous,” she was “the most unhappy” and tired.
She reluctantly took on her final significant role in the 2000 fantasy adventure movie Thomas and the Magic Railroad at the age of 11. “The characters had too little age. I reacted viscerally to [the] writing at 11 years old.I thought, ugh. I love it, she says to the Guardian.
“Destroyed”
Her decision to leave Hollywood wasn’t the only one, though.
Wilson was going through puberty and growing out of the “cute” position as a young teenager, so the roles weren’t coming in for him.
“Just another weird, nerdy, loud girl with bad hair and teeth, whose bra strap was always showing,” was how she was described.
“At least not in a positive way, no one had called me cute or given me compliments on my appearance when I was thirteen.”
Wilson had to deal with the pressures of fame and the challenges of growing up in the spotlight. Her changing perception of herself was greatly impacted by it.
“I had this Hollywood idea that if you lose your cuteness or attractiveness, you are nothing. Because I directly linked that to the demise of my job. Even though I was kind of burned out on rejection and Hollywood was burned out on me, rejection still stings.
Mara in the capacity of writer
Prior to being a writer, Wilson wrote her first book, “Where Am I Now?” 2016 saw the publication of “Ancidental Fame and True Tales of Childhood.”
Her journey from unintentional popularity to relative (but happy) obscurity is explored in the book, along with everything from her experiences learning about sex on the Melrose Place set to her realization as a teenager that she was no longer ‘cute’ enough for Hollywood.
She also wrote the biography “Good Girls Don’t,” which recounts her struggles as a young performer living up to expectations.
She writes, “Being cute just made me miserable,” in her Guardian column. I never expected to give up acting; that was always my expectation.
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