We all love the Roald Dahl classic Matilda – Matilda Wormwood, an intelligent, gifted girl forced to put up with a crude, distant father (Danny DeVito) and mother even though it has been over 15 years since the making it something that never gets old and makes us want to go to a school with a principle like Mrs Trunch ball.
And to all want a teacher like Mrs Honey. With west end and Broadway musicals and global tours with repeats on Netflix.
But here are some things that will take you by surprise about the characters, behind the scenes and some juicy gossip of the cast.
Mara Wilson… Matilda
- Mara Wilson’s mom Suzie Shapiro Wilson died of breast cancer while the movie was filmed. Mara honoured her mother by bravely finishing “Matilda”, which was dedicated to Suzie’s memory.
- Mara Wilson designed the homemade doll that Matilda has in the film. Her name is Wanda.
Danny DeVito… Mr. Wormwood
- Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman are married in real life. They were married for 14 years before Matilda hit cinemas in 1996.
Rhea Perlman…Mrs. Wormwood
- Perlman is the author of the successful illustrated children’s book series Otto Undercover, whose six books to date (as of the middle of May 2012) are Born to Drive, Canyon Catastrophe, Water Balloon Doom, Toxic Taffy Takeover, The Brink of Ex-stink-on, and Brain Freeze.
- Perlman and DeVito separated in October 2012. However, in March 2013, it was reported that they had reconciled and called off the separation. The couple later separated again in March 2017
Embeth Davidtz…Miss Honey
- Director Steven Spielberg first spotted the actress in Deadly Matrimony and cast her in Schindler’s List before she starred in Matilda.
- Davidtz spent much of her early life in South Africa.
- Davidtz also managed to score roles in films such as Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,
Pam Ferris…Trunchbull
- Pam Ferris often stayed in character when the director called cut to scare the children on set so that their fear of Miss Trunchbull would be genuine when the camera was rolling.
- Ferris suffered several injuries during filming – the scene which saw her beaten up by blackboard dusters sent her to the hospital twice. – She got a big chunk of chalk dust in her eye, so she had to go to the hospital to wash it out.”
- Miss Trunchbull wasn’t the only child-terrorizing role Pam Ferris took on. Ferris also played the dreadful Aunt Marge in ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.’
- Miss Trunchbull thought it was a snake it was a newt. A real-life newt that crawled all over Pam Ferris’s body. (Rather her than us…) “His name was Mr Speaker, and we looked after him very well,”
- I couldn’t grip Amanda Thripp’s wires when I threw her over the fence. Can I hold this? Her body casing wires entered my palms through her plaits. “Put that over your little finger and swing her around,” they advised. I had to release because the centrifugal force nearly took my finger off. Seven or eight stitches.”
- The picture of Miss Honey’s father, Magnus, is a portrait of Roald Dahl, the author of the book “Matilda,” upon which the film is based.
- In a DVD section, Danny DeVito discloses that they scribbled the letters backwards on the opposite side of the chalkboard and put a magnet on it to make the chalk write by itself. They then had a magnet-attracting apparatus write the text backwards on the chalkboard.
- Matilda tells Miss Honey about a mouse’s heartbeat at the film’s end. In The Witches, the protagonist and his grandmother had the same conversation.
- The word “twit” is used several times in the film by Harry Wormwood and Ms Trunchbull. This could be a reference to a book called “The Twits” by Roald Dahl, who wrote the book this movie is based upon.
- THE CHOKEY, your gloomy, terrifying, claustrophobic hell. The genuine chokey wasn’t horrible. Ferris said the spikes were harmless despite its stench and appearance. “Don’t tell the kids. Rubber nails may close and poke without hurting.”
- MATILDA NEARLY DIED, and not at the hands of Miss Trunchbull. In an earlier version of the book, Dahl killed off his rebellious, unruly heroine at the end of the book. That incarnation of Matilda was a terrible little girl who was always playing tricks on people and used her powers to help her teacher fix a horse race. In the end, she dies. It looks like all that rewriting was for the best.
- DAHL HAD TO WRITE MATILDA TWICE.
- Child actor, Jimmy Karz, didn’t even like chocolate cake! They had a spit bucket for him to the side.
