From Miss Trunchbull to Bruce Bogtrotter: Here’s what the Matilda cast are up to now

What’s weirder – the local council letting a child who is clearly receiving all kinds of abuse from her family being allowed to live with them, or her then going to a school with a physically destructive teacher that, similarly, nobody seems to be in a hurry to stop? Okay, maybe that’s the kind of analysis that a fun children’s book from the 80s ought to be exempt from, but you get the point.

However, whatever you think of the questionable plotline, it is generally agreed that the cast of Matilda have largely suffered from the same fate that many similar films of this era suffer – where did the cast disappear to. Like, have we seen Bruce Bogtrotter since? Is Mara Wilson acting still? Here’s what the cast of Matilda have been up to since its release in 1996.

Mara Wilson as Matilda

Mara Wilson was the original child star who was in everything from Mrs Doubtfire to Miracle on 34th Street, but she is most likely best remembered as the lead in Matilda.

Wilson retired from acting just four years after the release of Matilda. She has been open about her struggles with mental health, having been diagnosed with OCD at the age of 12 as well as struggling with anxiety and depression. She returned to acting in 2012, appearing most notably in Bojack Horseman as Jill Pill, and is a full-time writer now.

She is openly bisexual, telling bi.org: “There were also a lot of reasons I didn’t identify with it for a really long time. I think by the time I was coming of age in the 2000s, there was sort of this idea of: ‘you’re doing it for attention.'”

In what is probably the weirdest celebrity relation, her cousin is none other than right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro. As a strong liberal herself, he is blocked on every social media platform.

Rhea Perlman as Zinnia Wormwood

Rhea Perlman played the ghastly mother of Matilda along with Danny Devito as her father, but what many people don’t realise is that she was married to Devito at the time. The couple were married in 1982 but then separated fully in 2017, but they remain close friends and share three children together.

She has been in many films since, most notably Beethoven’s Big Break, but has also been in TV shows such as Brooklyn 99, Cheers and Robot Chicken.

Danny Devito as Harry Wormwood

Danny Devito not only played the nasty car salesman father who pulled every trick in the book to swindle his customers, but he also directed the film. If his last few credits are anything to go by, his career has only gone up since the film was released.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Dumbo, Jumanji and The Lorax are all popular films/series that followed, and it seems like all his high profile film work has paid off – he sold the house he lived in with his wife Rhea for $24 million in 2015.

He endorsed Jeremy Corbyn in the 2017 election, saying of Corbyn: “I like the idea of people telling the truth. I like them to get to the bottom of things, really.”

Pam Ferris as Miss Trunchbull

What has Pam Ferris not been in since playing Miss Trunchbull in Matilda? Similarly nasty characters like Aunt Marge in Harry Potter and Smithy’s mum in Gavin and Stacey have lamented her as that character actor that gets cast as the evil old woman, but more recently she’s also played Sister Evangelina in Call The Midwife.

She seems to focus most of her time on British productions nowadays and has most recently appeared as Mrs Faulkner in the 2019 biopic Tolkien.

Embeth Davidtz as Miss Honey

Miss Honey was seemingly the only adult that actually behaved like one in Matilda, looking out for class and defending her class from the constant antagonism from Miss Trunchbull.

Embeth Davidtz went on to appear in several successful tv shows such as Mad Men, and she was even in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. In 2013, she was unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy to remove it. She has gone on to make a full recovery and appeared in films such as Bridget Jones, Gray’s Anatomy and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Jimmy Karz as Bruce Bogtrotter

By far the most iconic scene in Matilda has to go to Bruce Bogtrotter, who was forced to eat an entire chocolate cake by Miss Trunchbull in front of everyone at the school.

According to an interview with The Do, the actor Jimmy Karz claimed that the scene took three weeks to film: “I despised the smell of chocolate for a few weeks after that”.

Karz’ last credit appears to be in ER in 1998, which seems fitting as after leaving child acting he since studied biochemistry at university and then became an osteopathic medical student before graduating as a doctor in 2017.

Kiami Davael as Lavender

Kiami Davael, who played Lavender in Matilda, is now 33 years old. Although she’s mostly stayed out of the spotlight, she has appeared in various smaller films that you probably won’t have heard of.

Her Twitter profile says she is an actress, singer and writer, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence online of either of the latter.

Jacqueline Steiger as Amanda

Amanda got a pretty rough deal in Matilda, being violently spun around by her pigtails by the evil Miss Trunchbull. Well, 24 years on you may be surprised to find out that she still has a fondness for very distinctive hair.

Steiger went on to get a degree in Linguistics and Anthropology, and she has directed and produced her own short films. She works at San Diego Comic-Con every year as a big sci-fi fan.

Her Instagram bio reads: “Consider this official notice that creepy fans will be given one (1) warning and then be deleted.”

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