A star at nine, the actor was soon struggling with the death of her mother as well as nosy journalists and demanding fans. Angry, confused and thoroughly lost, how did she ever find her way back?
writes in Good Girls Don’t, that the enduring image of a child actor is of a spoilt brat. “A bratty child is one who won’t do what they’re told; child actorsdo what they’re told. Brats are selfish and greedy; child actors often support their families. A spoilt and misbehaving child will not get very far in the entertainment industry.” Wilson, the star of some of the biggest family films of the 90s, including Mrs Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street and Matilda, only wanted to please.
Wilson, now 35, has been thinking about this a lot. “I’m at an age where I’m reflecting on a lot of my life and thinking, ‘I wish I could apologise for this, I wish I could explain’,” she says . “I never thought of myself as a people-pleaser because I thought they were laid-back happy-go-lucky types, and that’s not what I was. I was more emotional, angry, easily frustrated and overwhelmed.” But it was, she realised, in response to the people-pleasing she had done all her life.
The family lived in Burbank, California. “It was a company town,” says Wilson . Her father was an engineer for the TV network NBC, and it wasn’t uncommon to see their school friends in an advert or Nickelodeon show. One of Wilson’s older brothers had done a few adverts, and she wanted to have a go. It was never about becoming a star, she says – like other children in their town, it was a way to put a bit of money away for college.
Dealing with grief, and fame, felt doubly unsteady. “I don’t think you can be a child star without there being some kind of lasting damage,” she says. “The thing that people assume is that Hollywood is inherently corrupt, and there’s something about being on film sets that destroys you. For me, that was not necessarily true. I always felt safe on film sets.
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