[Upbeat music playing during narration] If you’re a “Matilda” fan then stick around,
because you’re about to discover 15 behind the scenes facts about this beloved movie adaptation
of Roald Dahl’s novel.
[Film clapper sound, music continues playing]
“Bruce Bogtrotter” didn’t really have to eat all that cake.
Jimmy Karz who played Bruce did take bites of the cake,
but the scene took several nights to film, so the child actor had to spit it out between takes
to be able to film the scene over and over again.
Maintaining continuity was also a challenge because the cake around his mouth had to be
put back to match where it was the day before, and he also had to keep wearing the same dirty shirt.
Pam Ferris went through quite a transformation to become Agatha Trunchbull.
They used prosthetics to change her nose and eye bags, and hundreds of freckles and blood vessels were put on
her face with make up. Her slight mustache was painted on with mascara, and they also
painted her teeth to give them their stained color. This isn’t the only time Pam Ferris
played a despicable character
because she also played “Aunt Marge” in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.
Mara Wilson was very embarrassed about dancing all by herself on camera, so Danny DeVito
helped her get over her anxiety by asking all the crew to dance with her. The only person
who didn’t have to dance was the camera operator so the footage wouldn’t turn out all shaky.
Amanda Thripp really was thrown around by the Trunchbull. They achieved the effect by
hooking up Jacqueline Steiger, who played Thripp, to a harness while Pam Ferris held
onto fake pigtails.
To create the effect of the levitating pitcher, there was a pole attached to the bottom of
it that went through a hole in the desk. A signal was given to someone under the table
to push it up and then Embeth Davidtz who played Miss Honey would push it down, and
then the pole was erased later on in post-production.
It was pretty tricky to film the scene where "the ghost of Magnus" wrote on the chalkboard.
A crewman stood behind the board with a piece of chalk in his hand that had a strong magnet
inside of it. On the front side of the chalkboard was another piece of chalk with a magnet inside of it
so the chalk would stick to the board. The message was written backwards on the back
of the chalkboard, so all the crewman had to do was just trace the letters with his
magnet to make the message appear on the front side.
The eraser effect was created like the pitcher effect by attaching the erasers to sticks
and two crew members each held one and beat Agatha with them and then the poles were removed
later in post-production.
To create the flying book effect a crewman was lying on his back on top of a skateboard
with the book attached to a pole, and another crewman would pull the skateboard with a rope
to have the book travel across the room, and like all the other effects they removed the pole in post-production.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood were married in real life because Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman
were actually married when this movie was made.
The idea to make “Matilda” into a movie came from Danny DeVito when his daughters
brought the book home for him to read to them and when he did he got sucked into its potential to become
a great children’s film. It became quite the pet project for him because he played
Mr. Wormwood, the movie’s narrator, and he also directed the movie too.
You can spot at least two Roald Dahl references in the movie. One occasion is when Matilda
tells Miss Honey how much she loves Charles Dickens, but mispronounces his name, which
is a nod to Roald Dahl’s novel “The BFG” where a character also mispronounces Charles
Dickens’s name. Another reference to Dahl is the painting of Magnus, which is a real-life
portrait of the author.
You can see some Tim Burton references as well, because you may have noticed that the
FBI agent in the movie was played by Paul Reubens
who is most well-known for his character Pee-wee Herman from Tim Burton’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure”.
A second reference is that this isn’t the first time Reubens and Danny DeVito were in a movie together
because they were both involved in Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns”.
Mara actually made Matilda’s homemade doll herself. Danny DeVito specifically asked her
to design the doll so that she would feel more attached to it.
Sadly, Mara Wilson's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer during filming. Mara decided
to finish the film, and Wilson was afraid that her mother wouldn’t get to see it before
she passed, but Danny DeVito showed her an unfinished version of the film while she was
undergoing treatments. Wilson’s mother died six months after the movie was complete, and
her passing caused the Mara to lose interest in acting because since then she’s only
appeared in a handful of TV and film roles.
“Matilda” was almost banned from being made. The Dahl estate reportedly was very
disappointed with both “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”
as well as “The Witches” from 199.
However, the film’s screenwriter and her husband decided to write
the screenplay for free hoping to win over Roald Dahl's wife, Felicity. And for them they succeeded.
Click the playlist on the screen for more facts about other Roald Dahl movie adaptations,
or click the other video of mine that YouTube recommends
to keep learning more fun facts about your favorite films.