If you grew up in the 90s, chances are you recognize Mara Wilson. The star of family classics such as Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th Street may have never been a household name, but her work was beloved by countless children and families when today's millennial hipsters were still sporting their flannel and overalls on the elementary school playground.
Though Wilson created quite a few memorable roles, she skipped the quintessential child star phase, showing up back in the public eye with her popular Twitter account and a new career in writing, comedy and voiceover work. So what did it take to go from Matilda herself to a minor internet celebrity? Wilson covers that journey in her new memoir Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame. MashReads read the memoir and spoke with Wilson about her what it took to write it, why she chose to include the stories she did, and what the phrase on her book jacket "happy obscurity" really means.
Here are seven reasons why this book should be one of your fall must-reads.
Wilson has been ready to write this book for years
The decision to write a memoir was an easy one for Wilson. "I think there was a part of me that was always writing this book, because I always wanted to explain myself," she told MashReads. "I felt like, being in the public eye, people were only seeing a fraction of my life. And sometimes I only wanted them to see a fraction of my life. But there were things I wanted people to know."
It was more than just letting people know "what happened between the IMDB entries," as Wilson puts it, but as way to show fans who she is in reality and "take control of my life and sort of reclaim it."
But in the end, Wilson is simply a natural storyteller. "I like telling stories, and I like telling stories about myself, and if people are going to listen to me tell stories then definitely I am going to tell them."
She gets pretty personal
When it came to telling the stories in her book, Wilson wanted to make sure each page had a purpose. "That was definitely a concern of mine, is this something people are going to be able to understand and relate to?"
They say kill your darlings but I don’t like that; I think it’s more like giving your darling a haircut. Trim your darlings.
"If it’s personal, is it personal in a way, like talking about my mother’s death." Though she was hesitant at first, Wilson realized the wider implications of telling these personal stories. "I thought wait, how many people have been affected by death? Everybody, literally everybody has been affected by death. And how many people have been affected by cancer? Most people. So while that is unfortunate, while that sucks, it is definitely going to help people, probably make people feel less alone if I talk about this."
While Wilson values her privacy, especially in the age of social media and with her history as a Hollywood celebrity, her time in the public eye has helped her find a balance in what she shares. "You learn which things to value and which things to keep to yourself. I wrote [the book] with urgency in mind: these are the things I need to say, I really need to talk about looks, and the way I look affecting my career, and I also wanted to talk about how experiencing loss affected me, and I needed to talk about my obsessive compulsive disorder. And then, from there it was like OK what’s also fun? What’s not so much an essay but a beginning, middle, end story? What’s a fun moment in my life where things kind of came together in an interesting way? That’s how I decided what to write.”
And while Wilson admits to being a bit of a rambler, she didn't mind cutting down her stories to fit the timeline (her childhood and adolescence) and to benefit the reader. "They say kill your darlings but I don’t like that; I think it’s more like giving your darling a haircut. Trim your darlings. You’re giving your darling a haircut so you can see its eyes.”
She covers the tough stuff, like her history with OCD
“That was one of the harder chapters to write, just because I feel like I wish I had gotten help at a younger age," Wilson explained, "but there was so much going on in my life and in my family’s life that it just wasn’t feasible at the time." But getting her story out to the public is important to Wilson, and fits her criteria of being both relatable and helpful.
"I think that we need to talk about mental illness in a much more common way, the same way you would say 'oh hey I broke my leg and I have to do physical therapy for it.' You could be like 'I have panic attacks and I take medication for them and I have to do breathing exercises.'... We should talk about that and not see it as a personal failure."
And while she didn't write the memoir for catharsis, she felt that during the process. “It certainly helped and it did put things in perspective. And I feel a little bit more like I have something out there that speaks for me and who I am as a person. It kind of explains who I am.”
Obviously she talks about Matilda
The most popular — by far — of Wilson's acting roles was the title character in Matilda, the adaptation of the beloved children's novel that has since become adored in its own right.
“People love Matilda. Matilda is this cult figure. I think for a very long time I was confused about my feelings for Matilda, my feelings about having been Matilda. I felt kind of like I couldn’t win: If I was talking about her, people would be like why are you still bringing this up, and if I didn’t people would think I was ungrateful. It felt like it was a really hard line to walk, and it still is to a degree." But Wilson has a wonderful perspective on her time as Matilda. "I loved being Matilda and I loved working with everybody on Matilda. I have happy memories of that, especially since it was a difficult time in my life because my mom was sick. I’m happy to talk about Matilda. And it’s probably my favorite of the movies that I made. It was my favorite to film, too."
The only thing that truly bothers her now about talking to fans about Matilda is when they don't remember the true messages of the film.
"I think that really the only thing that bothers me is when people kind of take their own messages from it, when all they remember are ‘oh magic powers.’ I’m like the whole magic powers thing is allegorical, guys! It’s all about finding power within yourself and using that with knowledge and people who care about you and channeling frustration into a positive thing, and there’s a deeper message there, guys!’ But when all they want to talk about is how did you make the carrot fly, I’m like I’m glad that you liked that but I wish the rest of it had stuck with you too.”
So don't worry about ever telling Wilson what Matilda meant to you. “It means a lot that people care that much about her, and that she resonated with that many people. It’s a powerful thing and it’s something that I realize every single day."
And of course, she talks about Robin Williams
[Robin Williams] was really wonderful and really kind and I’m glad he had the opportunity to touch as many lives as he did.
Near the end of her memoir, Wilson introduces an essay she wrote on her blog in the aftermath of actor Robin Williams' death. “I was pitching the book when he died, and I’d already submitted stuff. But I wrote this piece, and at first I didn’t intend for it to go anywhere other than my blog, but then The Daily Beast picked it up and it got seen by a lot of people. I was really moved by the outpouring after his death."
While she originally intended to only use new and unpublished stories in her book, Wilson felt compelled to include something about Williams. "I wanted a separate chapter just dedicated to my memories of him, and including that piece that I wrote about him. That was definitely something I was glad to include because he was really wonderful and really kind, and I’m glad he had the opportunity to touch as many lives as he did.”
“I felt a lot better after I’d written a piece about what he meant and how he’d affect me positively. I’m glad that I got to write any kind of tribute to him at all.”
Wilson's memoir has a great message for readers
“I want readers to understand that everybody feels that they are out of place sometimes."
But just because you feel alone doesn't mean you can use that as a weapon. "if you think you’re different from everybody else, you’re going to have to watch yourself sometimes because that can lead to self-aggrandizing or a persecution complex. And then you can justify a lot of bad behavior by doing that. And I’m not talking about marginalized people, I’m talking about, ‘Everybody hates me, so I’ll be mean to everybody.’" Wilson is very aware of her own past tendency to slip into a "I'm not like the other girls attitude," and wants to pass the lesson of acceptance and inclusion to her readers.
"They need to know that they are not alone, they are not alone in these things. It does kind of suck thinking, 'Oh, I’m less special.' I don’t know if I would rather be less special or be alone. I think I would much rather not be alone.”
It's not a typical "Hollywood" memoir
If you couldn't tell from her Twitter, Wilson is not your typical former child star. The stories from her time in the heart of the film industry read more like anyone's childhood memories, except with more Danny DeVito. “People assume [if] you were in Hollywood you must know all these juicy things, but there is a lot of Hollywood that’s actually kind of bland and almost conservative in a way.”
But the affect of Hollywood on Wilson's life is explicit. “It wasn’t so much what Hollywood did to me as what Hollywood did to my mind... It wasn’t so much that Hollywood used-me-and-abused-me, chewed-me-up-and-spit-me-out, but it did affect the way I look at myself.”
Nowadays Wilson is happy working as a writer and voiceover actor, with no desire to jump back into films or to gain more fame. “I don’t think I need to be any more famous, I’m happy with the level that I’m at, of being someone who really means something to certain people."
To those aspiring performers, she has one bit of wisdom: "I always say the middle school question: If you could never play to an audience bigger than your middle school auditorium, would you still want to do it? And if they still want to do it then it means they are an actual artist. If they aren’t then that means they just want to be famous. You can’t chase fame because it’s something that comes and it goes. It’s a thing you cannot hold on to for very long."
"A successful actor is a working actor, or a comedy or a writer. As long as you are getting to do the thing that you like, you are a success.”
Though her book's blurb refers to Wilson's life as one of "happy obscurity," she clarified. “I’m living my life and I’m living it for me, which is nice. It’s my version of obscurity. Relative obscurity is probably a better term.”
