Film & TV3 min(s) read
Published 14:27 07 Aug 2026 GMT
One of the most iconic scenes from the 1996 film adaption of Roald Dahl's Matilda involves schoolboy Bruce Bogtrotter being forced to eat an entire chocolate cake by himself.
It's an image burned into the brains of every millennial who watched the film over and over again as a kid, but what you may not know is that the actor who played Bogtrotter in the film looks entirely unrecognizable today, 30 years on from Matilda's original release.
Jimmy Karz potrayed Bruce Bogtrotter in the 1996 film Matilda and although some of his co-stars in the movie, such as Danny DeVito and Pam Ferris, have remained international stars, he's faded from the spotlight.
But Karz, 30 years on from Matilda's release, looks very different today.
Jimmy Karz didn't pursue a full-time acting career following his appearance in Matilda, instead choosing to step away from the spotlight despite his success at such a young age.
Only 12 years old at the time of Matilda's release, Karz actually reunited with a lot of his on-screen cast, including Mara Wilson (Matilda) and Rhea Perlman (Mrs Wormwood) for a 2013 special, Afternoon Tea: A Matilda Reunion.
During an interview in 2015, Karz reminisced about his time filming Matilda, including his iconic chocolate cake scene.
He remembered that filming of that particular sequence took roughly three weeks to film, and came with its own challenges.
"I had to be on set everyday and wear the same clothes every day," he told the American Osteopathic Association. "Every day I had to have the chocolate painted on my face the way it was painted the day before.
"I despised the smell of chocolate for a few weeks after that."
Following the release of Matilda, Karz had a role in the 1998 rom-com The Wedding Singer, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, as well as a bit-part in popular US medical drama ER, which starred George Clooney.
However, Karz stepped back from the camera and spent two years at MTV as a production associate before finding, in his words, a passion for "service-orientated" work.
He worked in a community garden, volunteered to teach people from low-income communities how to grow their own food and decided to study biochemistry, before moving into medicine.
Today, Karz is a doctor, having graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2017.
