After the success of 1971’s “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Hollywood paused adaptations of Roald Dahl’s stories. However, the 1990s reignited interest, leading to several films based on his works, including 1996’s “Matilda.” This movie, adapted from the book published just eight years earlier, follows a young girl named Matilda who discovers her magical abilities. Her newfound powers become a means to fight back against the harsh adults in her life.

Despite its enchanting story, “Matilda” didn’t perform well at the box office, confining it to the list of fantasy films that didn’t initially find commercial success but are still worth watching. Nevertheless, the film resonated deeply with the audience it targeted, suggesting it gained popularity through home video rentals and TV broadcasts in the following years.

The movie featured a mix of adult and child actors, each at different stages in their careers. It’s intriguing to see how former child stars transform as they grow up, particularly those who leave Hollywood, which was the case for some of “Matilda’s” young cast members. Here, we explore where life has taken these actors from the film, as well as the ventures pursued by their adult co-stars as their careers have evolved over the decades.

Not every adult in Matilda’s life is awful to her. On the contrary, Miss Honey, her teacher, is not only kind and encouraging to all of the students at Crunchem Hall Elementary School, but often stands up to Principal Agatha Trunchbull — despite her being the boss — in defending Matilda against the various cruel and unusual punishments Trunchbull is often all too eager to inflict. Every kid who read the original “Matilda” book and watched the movie dreamed of having Miss Honey for a teacher, especially after she ends up adopting Matilda in the end.

As for why Miss Honey looks so familiar, older viewers might’ve recognized actor Embeth Davidtz as either the female lead of “Army of Darkness” or as maid Helen Hirsh from “Schindler’s List.” Since her turn as Miss Honey, Davidtz’s most noteworthy roles have been playing Peter Parker’s mother, Mary, in 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” and its sequel and the recurring role of Rebecca Pryce on “Mad Men.” Most recently, she had a short stint on the Apple TV+ drama “The Morning Show” and made her directorial debut in the 2024 film “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,” which she also starred in and wrote the screenplay for based on author Alexandra Fuller’s novel of the same name.

Matilda has several classmates who play a big role in the story, but none are as important as Lavender. Not only is she Matilda’s best friend, she’s also her frequent partner in crime in exacting prank-based revenge against Miss Trunchbull and is Matilda’s best cheerleader in trying to convince her to break away from her parents. Matilda in turn helps Lavender stand up for herself and be more assertive, and the two pals ultimately help to make each other better people.

“Matilda” was the first screen credit for actor Kiami Davael, who spent the next four years — what would ultimately comprise her entire acting career — mostly appearing on television. She had single-episode stints on “Moesha,” “The Steve Harvey Show,” and “In the House,” to name a few. Davael would then bookend her filmography with her only other big-screen acting credit to date, a 2000 movie called “Bruno.” According to Davael’s Instagram page, where she shows a lot of love for “Matilda” and shares images of fan conventions she attends, she’s also a singer, writer, and fitness influencer.

Matilda’s fellow students at Crunchem Hall Elementary School aren’t the only children in the film; there’s also Michael Wormwood, her older brother, who has as little affection for his sister as their parents do. In some ways, Michael is even worse to her, as Matilda’s parents are frequently just distant and neglectful, while Michael actively teases, insults, and bullies his little sister. His favorite insult for her is the very kid movie-friendly burn, “Dip Face.”

Though he played minor kid roles in movies like “Predator 2” and “North” and appeared on various sitcoms, actor Brian Levinson’s signature role would definitely be playing Michael in “Matilda.” He added just one more credit to his acting resume — a Season 9 episode of “Seinfeld” — before leaving acting behind for good. He eventually joined the ranks of child stars who wound up with normal jobs as grown-ups when he founded Levinson Group Promotions, which organizes pub crawls, VIP events, and other party planning services.

So what is it that Matilda’s parents are so busy doing that they can’t be bothered to be proper parents to her? Among their various shady dealings is the sketchy car business that her dad, Harrison “Harry” Wormwood, is running. And one of the movie’s various subplots is the federal investigation of said car business, an investigation overseen by two FBI agents named Bob and Bill.

Despite being a small role, the actor who plays Bob is one of the most famous faces in “Matilda,” as it belonged to Paul Reubens. While he’s obviously most famous as Pee-wee Herman, “Matilda” came at a time when the actor was giving the character a break and was taking on more non-Pee-wee acting work — including his cameo in “Matilda.”

In the years that followed, Reubens would eventually work Pee-wee back into his repertoire, up to and including the character’s well-received 2016 comeback movie, “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday.” When Reubens died in 2023 at age 70 after a long and mostly private bout of cancer, he had ideas for at least two different Pee-wee Herman movies that he sadly wasn’t able to get off the ground.

The other FBI agent investigating Harry Wormwood — an investigation that Matilda herself is far too eager to assist in — is Bill, the older of the two agents and the one who is typically seen in a hat. Not that Matilda has to do much in the way of giving up Harry, as her mother obliviously let Bob and Bill into their house and invited them to join her as she watched TV, blissfully unaware of the damage she was doing in the process.

Though he might not have the name recognition of Paul Reubens, Bill should still be familiar to those with a keen eye for prolific character actors. He was played by Tracey Walter, whose impressive filmography includes over 180 movies and TV shows. Arguably, his most famous pre-“Matilda” role is as the Joker’s right-hand man, Bob, in 1989’s “Batman,” though the more cult movie-minded might instead suggest “Repo Man,” where Walter played the character Miller, for that distinction.

The actor continued to play a wide range of both named and unnamed characters in film and television for 20 years after “Matilda.” He seemingly retired from acting following his final screen credit in the 2016 drama “Wakefield.” There is almost no information on him since, though all signs point to him at least still being alive at the time of this writing at the age of 82.

Unfortunately for Amanda Thripp, another of Matilda’s Crunchem Hall classmates, her most well-known scene in the movie is when she gets swung around and thrown by her pigtails by Miss Trunchbull — and for meekly objecting to the principal’s threats, no less. In addition to being a horrific act of child abuse, it’s an iconic scene, as well as one that is rather impressively pulled off in a largely pre-CGI moviemaking era.

Actor Jacqueline Steiger kicked off her career playing Amanda Thripp in “Matilda,” a role she followed up with by playing Margaret in “Dennis the Menace Strikes Again!” and taking on a part in an episode of “Dharma & Greg.” “Matilda” remains her only major studio film, and “Judging Amy” is the most well-known TV show she’s appeared in besides “Dharma & Greg.” In 2013, Steiger created and starred in a web series called “Force Push,” where a group of people imagine life with the titular “Star Wars” power and try to use science, meditation, and other approaches to make that happen. A 2014 short marks her final screen acting credit, confirmed by Steiger’s Instagram page, where she refers to herself as a “retired television-American” — though, as of May 2025, she is still appearing at fan conventions.

Cookie’s role in “Matilda” is short, just minutes of screen time that can be counted on one hand — but it’s still an important one, as she’s the lunch lady at Crunchem Hall and is tasked with preparing and serving the revolting-looking cake that poor Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat. And perhaps not surprising for a food prep employee eager to do Miss Trunchbull’s bidding, Cookie looks like a chef out of a grisly horror movie rather than one from a film for children.

Actor Marion Dugan, who so memorably brought the terrifying Cookie to life for “Matilda,” actually only has eight other acting credits to her name. That being said, her limited filmography leans on the twisted and unusual, including the quirky TV series “Get a Life” and the movies “Brain Donors” and “The Cable Guy.” A 1999 appearance in the sitcom “Shasta McNasty” was her final screen credit before she passed away in 2015 at the age of 97. She was the mother of actor and filmmaker Dennis Dugan, best known as the director of multiple Adam Sandler and Happy Madison Productions films. 

An older classmate of Matilda and Lavender, Hortensia has a lot more experience with the ins and outs of Crunchem Hall — and dealing with Miss Trunchbull — so she gives the duo some helpful advice for staying out of trouble. Of course, Hortensia isn’t above causing mischief herself, a habit that often lands her in the “Chokey,” the school’s medieval torture-esque device for especially troublesome students.

Credited as Kira Spencer Hesser, the actor who played Hortensia in “Matilda” has since married and changed her name; she now goes by Kira Spencer Cook or simply Kira Cook, which might clue you into the fact that she didn’t exactly get famous as Kira Spencer Hesser. Though Cook has continued her acting career, with credits that extend well into the 2020s, “Matilda” indisputably remains her most famous project on either the big or small screen. That being said, she did appear in a 2024 episode of the series “The Really Loud House,” as well as a voice role in four episodes of the Rashida Jones-starring and produced Apple TV+ dark comedy “Sunny.” Cook is also the host of the PBS travel series “Islands without Cars,” which aired between 2013 and 2024.

We’ve mentioned Miss Trunchbull a lot so far, which makes sense as she’s the main antagonist of “Matilda” and a terror in the lives of pretty much every kid in the movie — as well as a few adults. Agatha Trunchbull is the kind of principal who sells herself as someone who is just trying to do what’s best for the school and its students but is barely able to hide her contempt for both and seems to actually hate the children she’s supposed to be looking after and caring for. Fortunately, she gets some very satisfying comeuppance in the end, aided greatly by Matilda’s powers.

A character like Miss Trunchbull has to walk a careful line between being over-the-top but without descending into too much of a caricature to take seriously, and it’s the skilled performance of actor Pam Ferris that ends up keeping things on the effective side of that balance. Ferris had mostly been kicking around on British television prior to starring in “Matilda,” after which she started to ramp up her film career. She would go on to play key roles in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and “Children of Men,” with the former trading on her talents as Miss Trunchbull but the latter showing a much kinder and gentler side to the actor’s character range. Her most significant project post-“Matilda” has definitely been her recurring role as Sister Evangelina on the period drama series “Call the Midwife” between 2012 and 2016.

One of the most enduring images of “Matilda” is the scene in which a boy is forced to eat as much cake as possible in front of an audience of kids cheering him on. It’s one of those scenes that people might be aware of without even consciously knowing what film it’s from, as it’s the sort of movie moment that transcends its source material to become a pop culture touchstone all its own. You might not have seen or even heard of “Matilda,” but if you’re shown an image of Bruce Bogtrotter’s face covered in chocolate, you’ll probably recognize it.

It can’t be easy being a kid who became famous for being forced to shove cake into his mouth in a movie, which was the case for actor Jimmy Karz. That he then followed it up with being the awkward kid who none of the girls wanted to dance with in “The Wedding Singer” probably didn’t help things, and after just one more screen credit — an episode of “ER” — Karz was done with acting. After staying in the periphery of the entertainment industry for a bit as a TV production assistant, Karz went to school to study biochemistry and eventually became a doctor.

When Matilda’s mother, Zinnia Wormwood, wasn’t flirting with the FBI agents who were investigating her husband, she was probably at the bingo hall. She certainly wasn’t doing anything even remotely resembling being a caring mother to her young daughter. For what it’s worth, she eventually does the right thing for Matilda in the end, even going so far as to admit that she could’ve done more to relate to and understand her daughter.

Zinnia was played by Rhea Perlman, who just so happened to be married to “Matilda” director and co-star Danny DeVito. While the pair have been separated since 2017, they not only remain legally married but also maintain that they are close friends. Both before and since “Matilda,” Perlman remains best known for playing the waitress Carla across all eleven seasons of the iconic sitcom “Cheers.” She has also had recurring roles on “The Mindy Project,” “Poker Face,” and “Star Wars: The Bad Batch.” Perlman has done plenty of movies as well, including playing a version of Barbie creator Ruth Handler in 2023’s “Barbie.”

While Zinnia’s biggest parental sin is that of absenteeism, Matilda’s father, Harry Wormwood, takes things much further — particularly when he deliberately destroys one of his daughter’s books to encourage her to quit reading and watch TV instead. It’s also Harry who wheels and deals with Miss Trunchbull to get Matilda into Crunchem Hall, an institution that he hopes will break the young girl’s spirit. It’s Zinnia who mostly pushes to let Matilda live with Miss Honey in the end, a move that Harry mostly just goes along with rather than actively encouraging.

One fact that true Danny DeVito fans know about the comedy legend is how kind and protective of young star Mara Wilson he was while making “Matilda.” Wilson’s mother was in the final stages of terminal cancer during production of the movie, and DeVito — along with Perlman — went out of his way to make sure Wilson was looked after and treated well during that difficult time in her life. The pair essentially became Wilson’s parents on set, sometimes letting her stay at their house. DeVito even paid out of his own pocket to have a rough cut of the movie copied to a VHS tape for Wilson’s mother to watch before she died.

As far as DeVito as an actor, his filmography is, of course, extensive and includes almost too many classic films and TV shows to name. But in the spirit of this feature, in recent years he’s most associated with his role on the long-running sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where he’s been a main cast member since Season 2 way back in 2006.

As much as the ensemble around her was a big part of the magic of “Matilda,” the titular character — and her literal magic — are what ultimately cemented the movie’s place as an enduring classic for ’90s kids. The ability to come off as innocent and cute as a button one minute and charmingly mischievous the next is a juxtaposition that few characters are able to pull off. Of course, much of that is thanks to the performance of young actor Mara Wilson.

Of course, it wasn’t just “Matilda” that got Wilson’s face onto the big screen in the ’90s. She was also a scene stealer in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “A Simple Wish,” and the 1994 remake of the Christmas classic “Miracle on 34th Street.” But after 2000’s “Thomas and the Magic Railroad,” Wilson — at only 13 years old — decided to take a break from acting. She’s slowly dipped her toe back into that career in recent years, but her biggest roles have been voice roles in “BoJack Horseman” and “Big Hero 6: The Series,” seeming to suggest that Wilson still isn’t particularly interested in high-visibility fame. With all that in mind, Wilson says that she would do a “Matilda” sequel under one condition – that Danny DeVito be involved as well.