- (FBE) I just want to say, first off,
it's so cool to have you with us here today.
- Thank you for having me.
- (FBE) Today, we're going to have you react
to our Kids React episode to a challenge
in a movie you starred in when you were a kid.
I'm sure you're familiar with this at this point?
- Yes, I have heard of the Matilda Challenge
and I've watched several of the videos and I find them delightful.
♪ (playful intro) ♪
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ - (laughing)
- (Krischelle) This is the music from Matilda, right?
- Good, she recognizes the music right away.
- (Kelis) What the heck? - (laughing)
- (Jake) What the heck? - So many umbrellas in these.
- (Jordyn) That was crazy.
- (Sydney) What is this?
- (Max) Reenacting the scene from Matilda or something?
- He gets it. - (Max) I named my dog Miss Honey
after Matilda. - Oh, my gosh!
- Oh, I love this one.
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ - (laughing)
- (Jake) What the heck?
- (Jordyn) The tiger is moving.
- Yeah, I like when they use the stuffed animals.
- (Kelis) If that's a trend, that's the weirdest trend ever.
- I don't think it's weird. I think it's cute.
- (Krischelle) ...objects are moving with her because
she has the power or something, so I think they're trying
to re-create that or mimic it. - I'm glad they get it.
- (Jake) The Matilda Challenge. Oh, Matilda!
- (Kelis gasping) Matilida! - I love that they know it.
I'm amazed that there were several of them
who just got it right away without knowing the name.
- (Tyler) How many people did she have to get to do that?
That's crazy.
- I've wondered about that too.
That would take a lot of people.
- (Gabe) This might be bad, but I don't even know who Matilda is.
- (Kelis) Matilda, I always watched that with my mom.
- Aww.
- (Kelis) I never really realized that this would be a trend.
- Yeah, I didn't either and I was in the movie.
- (Sydney) That's nice. It's not horrible.
They're not eating Tide Pods.
- That's true. - (Sydney) That's a plus.
- (Gabe) Not one of the best things that people have came up with.
- Oh, come on.
- (Tyler) A lot of people would say it's easy,
but I bet it's harder than it looks. - Yeah, it looks hard to me.
- (Jordyn) I already | see someone moving it.
- I love when you can see people moving it though.
- (Sydney) I can see the string, but you know what?
That's okay. - Yeah, exactly.
It's the DIY aspect that makes it.
- (Eleanor) Oh, it's a mascot. - I have not seen this one.
- (Sydney) This is bigger than I thought it would be.
- I know, same!
- (Max) Oh, yeah. This one's really messy.
- Yes, it is. - (Max) ...cleaning that up.
- (laughing) - (Jordyn) Oh, god.
- (Jake) Oh, my god!
- (Gabe) That one was interesting because now they're just putting it,
the music over random things. - (laughing)
- (Jake) The Matilda Challenge gone wrong.
- (Jordyn) He is crazy. - Oh, no!
- (Jordyn) I knew it! I knew it!
- That did not look like a steady coffee table to being with.
- (Sydney) You can see the people coming out--
- The people coming out at the end. - (Max) I hope she's okay.
- Yeah, that was my concern too.
- (Eleanor) Why is she even dancing on the table
in the first place? You should know!
- Weigh it down.
- (Kelis) ...because it's so old, the movie.
- Okay, it's not like a Charlie Chaplin movie, okay?
It's not THAT old.
- (FBE) After watching all these videos,
do you have any idea where the challenge comes from?
- (Eleanor) No.
I have no idea what the challenge is.
- (Max) Yes, it's from the movie Matilda,
the scene where she's like-- - (laughing) He's an expert.
- (Max) I first watched the musical and I loved it so much
and then I'm like, "Is there a movie?"
And I watch it to this day.
- (FBE) So the challenge is called the Matilda Challenge.
It is inspired from a scene from a movie called Matilda
that came out in 1996, so 22 years ago.
- Oof. - (Eleanor) I wasn't even born then.
- (Krischelle) I liked the movie and it's crazy that it came out
22 years ago... - Yeah, it is.
- (Krischelle) ...and they're still watching it now
because it's just a classic that everyone has to watch.
- I love that.
I love that it's a classic.
- (FBE) I'm gonna show you a clip now from the scene that
kind of inspired the challenge. - (Jordyn) Okay.
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪
- (laughing)
- (Jake) That's cool.
- That was a fun scene to film.
- ♪ (Tyler humming along) ♪
There it is.
- (Sydney) So she has powers?
- Yeah, I guess out of context that would be kind of surprising.
- (Tyler) It all makes sense now, yeah.
I definitely remember it. - I designed that doll.
- (Krischelle) This movie brings back
so many good childhood memories.
- (Jordyn) Yeah, that's real magic. - (laughing)
- (Eleanor) Now I actually kind of want to see that movie.
- Yes, watch it!
- (Krischelle) I saw it tens of thousands of times.
I was so amazed when she was like, "Wait, she has powers?
Do I have powers?"
- Yeah, so many people asked me that.
They were like, oh, did you used to pretend
that you had powers too and I was like, well, no,
I knew how the powers happened.
So many girls will come up to me and they'll be like,
I used to try to move my closet door, I used to try to levitate a pencil,
I used to stare at a water glass.
All the time, so many kids thought or hoped that they had powers.
- (FBE) Why do you think this challenge
is only becoming popular now when the movie came out so long ago?
- (Jake) Maybe because people like classics?
I don't know.
- (Jordyn) It's really popular. - Happy to be a classic.
- (Jordyn) It's really old. Since it was SO old--
- (laughing) It's not that old!
- (Max) Well, sometimes I wonder where it originated from.
I just want to know how something so strange
could even remotely--
- Yeah, I feel like a lot of these are just inside jokes
that spiral out of proportion.
- (FBE) Finally, we want to see if you can try out
the Matilda Challenge. - (thumping table)
Here?!
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪ - Aww!
The embarrassing thing is how much better dancers
they are than I am.
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪
- (laughing)
Oh, these are so cute.
- ♪ (vocalizing) ♪
- (laughing)
- (Sydney) Let's go. - (laughing)
- (Sydney) I have telekinetic powers. Who even is Matilda?
- (cracking up)
Her reaction might have been my favorite.
She's just having fun.
- (FBE) So obviously, with having such a public presence
when you were younger, a lot of people
probably still think of you as the little girl from those movies.
We actually have a re-occuring format we do
called the "Try Not to Feel Old Challenge,"
where we show our adults cast things that might make them feel old
because of the perspective, so we wanted to quickly show you
some of their reactions when we revealed to them last year,
when we told them how old you had become
since those movies.
So here's a quick little clip of that segment.
- (Brittany) Matilda!
Aaah! Matilda's not 30. Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my gosh.
- (Jamayla) Oh, my gosh! I used to watch that.
She looks all grown now. - I am!
- (Ted) I remember seeing that movie in movie theaters.
I'm so old!
- (Trudi) She's got that same sweet smile.
That makes me feel really old.
- (Madison) That movie does feel old to me, like really old,
so the fact that she's 30 isn't that surprising.
- (Sabrina) Who's Matilda? I don't remember Matilda.
It's an old movie?
- (FBE) Now you're making me feel really old.
- (laughing) And me. And me feel really old.
Yeah, that makes me feel old. (laughing)
- (FBE) So for you, what was it like to watch kids of today
react to a challenge based on a film that you were in years ago?
- I was really pleasantly surprised to see how many of them
knew the movie and I was flattered that they enjoyed it
and, you know, they were calling it a classic.
I was a kid when I made it. I was their age.
You don't really think about the magnitude of this.
You don't really think about it and you don't think about
how long it could go on, so it's amazing to me,
it's mind boggling to me that people--
and it's an honor that kids still know it.
I also love that the ones who didn't know the movie
seemed to enjoy the scene from it when they were watching it,
saying that it was real magic, especially considering
the CG that we were doing there is, you know,
twenty something years old and probably not as good
as a lot of stuff they're used to seeing today.
- (FBE) When we were preparing to do this episode,
originally we were looking up just various challenges
and the first thing we noticed was,
oh, you're retweeting a lot of these. - Yeah!
Yeah, somebody brought the Matilda Challenge
to my attention and I loved it. I thought it was so funny.
I mean, I feel like even if I hadn't been in Matilda,
it's something I would have thought was funny.
I, of course, love them and it's an honor to see people
re-creating this scene that was very, very fun to film.
I think that there have been times in my life
when it's been very hard for me to be Matilda.
It felt almost like living in the shadow
of a much older, smarter, more successful big sister, you know?
I felt like people always liked Matilda
more than they liked me, and that was difficult for me
because I felt like nobody really knew me
and liked me for who I was, but I think in the past few years,
and it took me a long time, I've really come to appreciate
how many opportunities being Matilda gave me
and how much of an honor it is to have been able to play that part.
So I think that's another reason why I love the Matilda Challenge,
because I feel bad.
Did I disappoint a generation of girls who would, you know,
try to make doors open with their mind
and, this way, they do get to live the dream
with a little help from their friends.
- (FBE) And so did you ever think of doing the challenge yourself?
- I did think about doing the challenge myself.
I'm really not a good dancer.
So I told Danny DeVito and he said, okay, well the rule is on set that day,
everybody has to dance, so everybody did.
And my mom was dancing and the camera guy was dancing
the sound guys were dancing and the prop people were dancing,
everybody was dancing, the producers were dancing,
so the Matilda Challenge feels to me-- it feels good and it feels right
and it feels fitting because it was a giant dance party that day
and I love that this giant dance party is still continuing on 22 years later.
- (FBE) You were in a lot of amazing films growing up.
Besides Matilda, Miracle on 34th Street, Mrs. Doubtfire, films that
really meant something to an entire generation of kids
who are now sharing it with their kids because they're now becoming adults.
So what was it like growing up, being a child actor
and having that presence kind of stay with you
throughout your life?
- I don't think that I really understood at the time
how much the things that I was doing were going to resonate with people.
I think I was happy when my films became successful,
but it felt the same as getting an A on a test.
It didn't really feel-- and my parents, I think,
very much tried to downplay it, so it didn't feel like
this major accomplishment, but I think that, overall,
it did make me who I am today, and, I mean, I love kids.
I've always loved kids and I always felt like people
didn't take kids seriously when I was a kid
and I always promised myself that I was going to be
the kind of adult who would, and I think that now I get to be that.
Now I get to meet kids and I get to hear
you're their favorite and I get to get hugs
from kids from all over the world and I get to tell them--
I get to encourage them to keep reading
and, I mean, what a privilege that is.
- (FBE) So, finally, before you leave today,
we wanted to see if you had anything to say
to the kids who reacted to you or any of the Matilda Challenge fans
out there who participated in the challenge themselves.
- Uh, great job.
Honestly, great job.
I think you guys were great dancers.
I hope that you do watch the movie at some point.
It is something I'm proud of, but if it's not your thing,
that's okay too.
Really, though, I'm just glad that you had fun
and I'm glad you guys got to dance because I'm glad
that we all got to dance.
Hey, I'm Mara Wilson.
Thank you so much for having me.
It is the 30th anniversary of Matilda this year,
so if you have not read the book or have not seen the movie, do that!
Read it and watch it and also if you are an adult
and you want to read more of my writing,
you can find me at Mara Wilson on Twitter
or go to Mara.substack.com.