Though the 1996 Danny DeVito film Matilda underperformed at the box office, it’s gone on to become a cult classic with a sea of loyal fans. The story, which starred Mara Wilson (who has since retired from acting), followed a neglected little girl with magical powers who must find her happy ending.
Matilda is entertaining enough to watch as a viewer, but the stories which have emerged from the making of the film suggest that it was definitely more exciting to be on set.
Along with the scary chokey prop that genuinely terrified the child actors, and the special effects employed to pull off the magical occurrences in Matilda’s life, there have also been stories of unfortunately on-set injuries.
In particular, Pam Ferris, who portrayed the villain Agatha Trunchbull, ended up in hospital on more than one occasion while bringing her character to life.
How Did Pam Ferris End Up In The Hospital?
Pam Ferris’s character Miss Trunchbull seemed to be the one inflicting injuries on the children of Crunchem Hall. But behind the scenes, things were quite different. According to January Media, Ferris fell into harm’s way a few times on set, and even needed to be rushed to hospital.
She ended up in hospital after filming the scene where Miss Trunchbull becomes enraged with Amanda Thripp over her pigtails, eventually lifting her by the hair, swinging her around and launching her through the air.
The website states that there were wires weaved through the pigtails, which Ferris looped her fingers through to give her a better grip. However, during filming, the force that came from swinging Jacqueline Steiger around was too intense and ended up tearing a small part of Ferris’s finger off.
She was taken to the hospital where she received seven or eight stitches.
In a behind-the-scenes featurette, director Danny DeVito explains that they were able to film the pigtail scene with the use of a crane. Of course, Ferris wasn’t really swinging Steiger around; instead, the young actress was fitted into a harness and then moved by the crane.
There were several crew members on hand to make sure the scene went smoothly for Steiger, and DeVito recalls that she constantly read books in between takes while she was still in her harness, much like Matilda would.
Steiger also had a code word that she would say if she felt too dizzy and wanted the crew members to stop: jellybeans.
Interestingly, the pigtail incident wasn’t the only time that Ferris landed in the hospital while making the movie.
At the end of the film, where Trunchbull is attacked by Matilda’s flying erasers, Ferris was told to keep her eyes open. This resulted in dust particles landing in her eyes, so she had to be taken to the hospital to have them washed out.
What Was Pam Ferris Like With The Children On Set?
Pam Ferris played Miss Trunchbull so convincingly that a generation of viewers carried on their fear of the character into adulthood (guilty). However, the young actors who worked with Ferris recall that she was incredibly sweet behind the scenes, and nothing like the Trunchbull.
According to Buzzfeed, Ferris intended to stay in character so that the children’s fear of her during filming would be genuine. She also tried to keep her distance from the children. However, they saw straight through her.
"It broke down very quickly because they were daring little ones there that just came straight up to me and put their hand in mine between takes,” Ferris recalled (via Buzzfeed). “I fell in love with them completely.”
How Did The Make-Up Team Create The Look Of Miss Trunchbull?
After Ferris’s brilliant acting skills, the makeup and costuming that went into Miss Trunchbull had a major impact on her success as a terrifying villain.
To make Ferris seem like a scary child-hating headmistress, makeup artist Ve Neill employed several techniques that completely changed her look.
The team took a face cast of Ferris and then made a few pieces to add on to her face out of gelatin. They gave her a longer nose and made eye bags to attach to the skin beneath her eyes so she would appear older and more tired.
Neill then magnified all the skin imperfections she could find in Ferris’s skin, taking broken veins and painting over them to make her skin seem red and uneven. She drew on other spider veins and then painted her teeth with a tobacco stain to give them a “yellowy edge”.
Neill also painted over the peach fuzz above Ferris’s lips to give her a mustache, and darkened her eyebrows, also joining them with paint to create the look of a monobrow.
The combination of the amazing visual effects and Pam Ferris’s superb acting skills resulted in a character that children loved (and hated).
Ferris did such a great job at executing the Trunchbull that most fans decided no other actor could live up to her—not even the legendary Emma Thompson, who portrays the headmistress in the Netflix adaptation of the film.
