Mara Wilson rose to fame in the '90s as the precocious little girl in Mrs. Doubtfire,
followed by the lead role in Matilda.
But the talented young actress seemed to disappear from Hollywood in the years after.
Now in her thirties, she has since regained her footing and embraced her true passion.
Here's what she's been up to.
The beloved 1993 film Mrs. Doubtfire opens with a family of five navigating a painful
divorce.
Despite the heavy subject matter, the movie takes on a lighthearted tone after Robin Williams'
character, family patriarch Daniel Hillard, transforms into an elderly housekeeper named
Mrs. Doubtfire to maintain contact with his three children.
Any fan of this comedy probably remembers the Hillards' youngest child, Natalie, who
was played by then 5-year-old Mara Wilson.
Wilson stole the show with her bright blue eyes and personality, and quickly became a
cherished child star.
After the massive success of Mrs. Doubtfire, she went on to star in the 1996 movie adaptation
of Roald Dahl's Matilda, acting alongside Rhea [Perlman and Danny DeVito, who also directed
the movie.
Even though the movie was another hit for Wilson, she reportedly contemplated quitting
acting after the film's release due to the death of her mother, Suzie, who was tragically
diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before Matilda began filming.
Just months after the movie wrapped, she passed away - but not before DeVito made sure she
got to see her daughter's finished work.
"I thought that my mother had never gotten a chance to see the movie, but he said he
actually brought a print of the movie to her while she was sick.”
Despite the impact of her mother's untimely death, Wilson continued to take on a few other
acting jobs post-Matilda.
It's a decision the actress later came to regret, telling Parade in December 2013:
The California native recalled that the time in which she was most famous was also the
time in which she was the most unhappy.
As Wilson put it, acting became sort of her emotional crutch, and she expressed in an
interview on NPR in September 2016 that she, quote, "didn't know what to do" with her life
after Matilda.
Wilson eventually found her true calling during her college years at New York University,
where she was a student in the school's interdisciplinary theater program.
There, thanks to a class centered on creating original work, she discovered that she was
a natural storyteller.
She explained in an interview with Longreads in November 2014, quote, "…I told a lot
of autobiographical stories, and I always wanted to be a writer."
During her time at NYU, Wilson performed a one-woman show about her childhood fame, titled
Weren't You That Girl.
She says the show sold out every night, giving her the confidence she needed to pursue her
new passion.
In 2014, Wilson's former co-star Robin Williams took his own-life, prompting a period of self-reflection
on Wilson's part.
In a short statement published in August of that year, Wilson wrote that she was, quote,
"shocked, confused, angry, regretful, and above all, sad" to learn of her former co-star's
death.
Wilson paid homage to Williams in her 2016 memoir, Where Am I Now?
True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame, a book which also addressed her mother's death,
her dating life, and everything in between.
She explained why she wrote the book in an interview with Mashable.
Despite Wilson's openness in the book, she didn't reveal her bisexuality until after
the tragedy of the Pulse nightclub shooting in June 2016.
While the reveal had been a long time coming, Wilson later expressed regret about coming
out publicly during that time, with the timing drawing accusations that she was using the
tragedy for personal attention.
While Wilson's creative development took her away from acting, she still makes occasional
appearances, such as a brief cameo on Comedy Central's Broad City in April 2016 which paid
homage to the climax of Mrs. Doubtfire.
As she explained in an interview with Brokelyn,
She also shared that she's working on embracing her child star days.
In November 2018, she attended a Mrs. Doubtfire reunion with co-stars Pierce Brosnan, Lisa
Jakub, and Matthew Lawrence.
While growing up in front of an audience of millions had its drawbacks, Wilson has said
she's coming around to see the positives in her experience.
She told Entertainment Weekly in a post-reunion interview,
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