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—and with the recent news of a third installment in the fantastical franchise on the way (20 years after The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement!), we’re taking a look back at her long and quirky career and what she’s said about the movie.
How Heather Matarazzo got her start
Heather Matarazzo began as a child actress, but unlike many child stars, she didn’t debut in a warm and fuzzy sitcom. She was 12 when she starred 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.”
From indie star to teen queen
After Welcome to the Dollhouse, Matarazzo continued acting in indie films, and gradually accumulated supporting parts in bigger movies. 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.
Playing Lilly Moscovitz in The Princess Diaries changed the trajectory of Matarazzo’s career, and she said, “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.”
While it’s not yet confirmed whether Matarazzo will be in the new Princess Diaries movie, she’s expressed her interest in being involved, saying, “If Annie [Hathaway] and Julie [Andrews] are down, of course” she’d want to be in the cast and “As soon as I know it’s a go, I will say so,” in a 2016 Cosmopolitan interview.
When The Princess Diaries 3 was rumored to be in development in 2017, Matarazzo and other original cast members all expressed their interest in returning, and in a 2021 TikTok, she said that when it came to a hypothetical new movie, “I would totally, totally, totally love to be involved. And would be involved, because there’s no Mia without Lilly.” We can’t argue with that!
Heather Matarazzo’s recent roles
After The Princess Diaries, Matarazzo was in 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).
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 lives a decidedly non-Hollywood life with her wife in Michigan.
Matarazzo has been refreshingly real about the difficulties of being an independent “working class actor” on her TikTok page, where in addition to talking about The Princess Diaries and 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) , she’s shared her heartfelt take on Stuck, an only recently released movie she worked on with her wife back in 2016.
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 with The Princess Diaries 3 on the horizon, she just might be stepping further into the spotlight than ever before.
