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"I would like people to know me for who I am, especially since I think people have a very skewed image of me."

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Mara Wilson was the face of the 90s, one of the child actors of the era, and we tend to forget that her career in film was actually very short-lived. Though she featured in the iconic Matilda (1996) and of course, Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), she essentially retired from the screen in 2000, at just thirteen years old. Since then she has focused mainly on writing, as well as podcasting, with a one-off acting appearance here and there, and she couldn't be happier with that decision.

Matilda

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While Mara Wilson is regarded as an honest-to-goodness movie star of the 1990s, and Matilda has since become a family classic, many forget that the movie was actually considered a flop on release. Matilda was produced on a budget of around thirty six million dollars, while only earning thirty three million back at the box office. While many young stars can live on residuals owing to a popular film, Mara Wilson wasn't quite so lucky. Today she is estimated to have a net worth in the area of half a million dollars.

Of course, without any recent nationwide-release film projects to go on, this is all wild speculation. Not to mention, Mara Wilson has tried not to be as much of a public figure now as she was in her youth, so any guesses as to what she's pulling in these days are just that: guesses. In any event, while half a million dollars may not be much for an active movie star, it's not a bad starting point for a young woman barely in her thirties.

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While she is no longer a full-time actress, she is in demand as an occasional guest star, lending her voice to the popular Netflix series Bojack Horseman, and fans of the podcast Welcome to Night Vale will know her as "The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home." There's no telling what she earns per-appearance on these projects, but the fact that she can afford to only work when she cares to, on projects that catch her interest, suggests that she's probably not hard up for money, and has invested her child-star income well.

And of course, if she ever wants to make a full-time return to acting, one of her closest friends in the business is actor, director, writer, producer and all-around entertainment legend Danny Devito, who helped to take care of Mara Wilson while her mother was in the hospital during the filming of Matilda. If you want friends in the business, you can't do any better than that.

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That Mara seems to be doing fairly well for herself two decades since she stopped working as a full-time actress may owe in part to the fact that she never really developed movie star spending habits. You're not going to catch Mara Wilson driving around in million dollar sports cars or spending a year's mortgage on a weekend clothes shopping spree. Since leaving Hollywood, Mara WIlson has generally lived a quiet, modest lifestyle, lending her voice to the world as a writer and as a podcaster, but showing no real interest in the fame and fortune that seemed to fall in her lap when she was a child.

Mara Wilson, Author

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Today Mara has been a writer for far longer than she was ever an actress. She wrote a piece for the website Cracked on the challenges faced by child stars, and wrote a memoir, Where Am I Now? True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame (2016). She's also worked as a playwright, scripting Sheeple for the New York International Film Festival. It may not be fortune and fame, but Mara seems more than happy with the quiet, drama-free life of a wordsmith.

"I consider my relationship with acting in Hollywood as sort of a mutual breakup. Through puberty, Hollywood didn't really want me anymore, and I was like, 'Yeah, I don't really want you, either.'"