Heather Matarazzo will forever be associated with the ’00s, when she gave her signature performance as Anne Hathaway’s quirky best friend in The Princess Diaries and its sequel, but she’s been working steadily since then, with a variety of projects in recent years. Here’s a look back at how she rose to fame, and what she has coming up next—including an upcoming guest starring role on a popular Netflix show.
An indie movie star at 12
Heather Matarazzo began as a child actress, but unlike many child stars, she didn’t get her start in a warm and fuzzy sitcom. She was 12 when she debuted in 1995’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, a gritty independent film in which she played a middle school outcast enduring various cruelties at home and school.
The film, which was made on a shoestring budget, was a surprise hit, and the young actress earned rave reviews for the surprising depth she brought to such a difficult role. Her character struck a chord with viewers, but she had a tricky time navigating her newfound fame, recalling, “To have grown people come up to me crying saying that this movie changed their life, and that the character I played changed their life, was hard to receive. It was very, very, very overwhelming.”
Following the success of Welcome to the Dollhouse, Matarazzo appeared in more indie movies and had a four-episode run on Roseanne in 1997. That same year, she broke into mainstream movies with a role in The Devil’s Advocate, and she then acted in a handful of films that failed to perform at the box office, including Strike! and 54 (both 1998). From 1999 to 2000, she costarred in the short-lived show Now and Again.
Becoming an ’00s teen queen
In 2000, Matarazzo had a supporting role in Scream 3, and she appeared in teen movies including Sorority Boys (2002) and Freshman Orientation (2004). The Princess Diaries brought her the most exposure, and the charming, escapist 2001 film and its 2004 sequel couldn’t have been more different from the bleak and ironic world of Welcome to the Dollhouse.
The Princess Diaries, in which she played Lilly Moscovitz, changed the trajectory of Matarazzo’s career, and she told Cosmopolitan, “I became a lot more mainstream. My fan base grew. Welcome to the Dollhouse propelled me into being known and being thought of as a talented actor, which I was really grateful for, but I was like an indie darling. I had done some studio stuff like The Devil’s Advocate, but wasn’t doing, like, co-leads in major blockbuster films. It gave me a lot more opportunity.”
Some of Matarazzo’s post-Princess work included movies like Saved! (2004), Believe in Me (2006) and Hostel: Part II (2007). In 2004, she came out as a lesbian, and consequently had roles in gay-friendly TV shows like The L Word (2007) and Exes & Ohs (2007 to 2011).
Her career today
Since the 2010s, Matarazzo has juggled a mix of mainstream projects (like the 2015 comedy Sisters and the fifth film in the Scream franchise, released in 2022) and low-budget movies. 2023 was one of her busiest years yet, as she acted in six features, including The Mattachine Family, a gay dramedy; Booger, a cat-themed horror movie; and You’re Not Supposed to Be Here, a Lifetime movie centered on gay characters.
Most recently, Matarazzo provided a voice for the Disney movie Wish and costarred in the campy horror rom-com The Zombie Wedding. While she’s been in multiple projects lately, she mostly lives a low-key, non-Hollywood life with her wife, screenwriter and comedian Heather Turman, in Michigan.
Matarazzo has also been refreshingly real about the difficulties of being an independent “working class actor” on her popular TikTok page, where she’s shared her heartfelt take on Stuck, a movie she worked on with her wife back in 2016 that’s only now seeing the light of day.
She also uses her TikTok to engage with fans and post fun viral videos debunking the rumor that she’s the mom of Stranger Things actor Gaten Matarazzo (whose actual mom shares her entire name, but has no relation to her) and dishing on how she feels about her Princess Diaries character years later.
Currently, Matarazzo has a few projects in the works, including a guest appearance in the much-anticipated second season of Wednesday.
Matarazzo may have once said, “I don’t know if I took a step back from Hollywood, or Hollywood took a step back from me,” but her charm, her commitment to daring independent projects and her brutal honesty have kept her in the spotlight.
