Matilda Wormwood

Matilda Wormwood is the title character and protagonist of the bestselling children's novel Matilda by Roald Dahl. She is a highly precocious five-year-old girl who has a passion for reading books. Her parents do not recognize her great intelligence and show little interest in her, particularly her father, a secondhand car dealer who has performed numerous abusive actions on her. She discovers she has psychokinetic powers which she uses to her advantage. In the BBC Radio 4 two-part adaptation of the novel, she is played by Lauren Mote and in the film, as a six-year-old she is portrayed by American actress Mara Wilson and as a toddler she is portrayed by Amanda and Caitlin Fein.

Characteristics

Matilda has either black or dark brown hair in the novel (however in the film her hair is bright brown) and is small in size. In the film, she says she is six and a half, in the novel, she is five and a half when she starts school. She is described as sensible and quiet, and almost unaware of her intelligence, but, as Roald Dahl observed, if one talked to her about literature or mathematics, she would show the extent of her intelligence . However, her friend Lavender sees her as gutsy and adventurous. She has the mental ability of telekinesis, the ability to move and levitate inanimate objects by mere thought, without having to physically touch them.