You Won't Believe What Bruce From ‘Matilda’ Looks Like IRL

There are few movies from childhood that hold up as well as Matilda. It has managed to maintain its magic over the years, no matter how many times you watch Matilda joyfully triumph over the adults bullying her and her friends. One such friend was Bruce Bogtrotter, famous for eating a chocolate cake nearly the same size he was. If you've ever wondered what happened to Bruce after the credits rolled, look no further: here's what Bruce from Matilda looks like IRL.

In the movie, cruel headmistress Agatha Trunchbull tried to humiliate Bruce by forcing him to consume an entire cake in front of the whole school. It wasn't just any cake, either: it was a gloriously gooey chocolate cake roughly the size of a small building. Bruce enjoyed his first slice, but every subsequent bite was more difficult to keep down. When it looked like he was starting to falter, however, Matilda jumped to her feet to cheer him on. It started a waterfall of supportive shouts that gave Bruce the boost he needed to lick the plate clean. It was a memorable moment in which the children supported each other in the face of horrible abuse by the adults in the story.

Bruce was played by an actor named Jimmy Karz. And here's what he looks like now:

As you can see, he's grown up quite a bit since then. Karz is 33 years old now, and seems to have given up acting entirely. He was just 12 years old when he appeared in Matilda and it's one of only three acting credits to his name. You might remember him from his single scene in The Wedding Singer, where he played a young boy who was rebuffed by the girl he liked at a bar mitzvah. Adam Sandler tried to cheer him up with a song and a spin around the dance floor with Drew Barrymore, who Karz's character groped. Which was supposed to be funny.

After that, Karz had a one-episode stint on ER in 1998 and that was it. He's never taken an onscreen role in film or television since. All things considered, it's not too shabby; at least his two biggest roles are ones that you remember.

Karz did reunite with the cast and crew of Matilda for a party in 2013, where he took part in a recreation of his most well-known scene alongside actress Pam Ferris. When faced with a second mountainous chocolate cake, however, he balked at devouring it. Perhaps he needed the encouragement of a full auditorium. Or maybe he just lost his taste for chocolate. In an interview Karz did with The DO, he said the original scene took so long to film that the cake wasn't quite so appealing by the end of it.

"That scene took about three weeks to film, from what I recall," Karz said. "I had to be on set all day, and I had to wear the same outfit every day. The chocolate was already encrusted on this shirt I was wearing. For continuity's sake, 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. I realized then that acting is not easy."

According to Movie Pilot, Karz shifted his focus from acting to academics. He graduated with a degree in Communications from St. John's University in New York and worked for MTV News for nearly two years before he decided on a different career path: he wanted to help people. He enrolled at Loyola Marymount University to study biochemistry and, as of August of this year, was studying medicine at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He seems to be well on his way to becoming Dr. Bogtrotter and, honestly, I'm here for it.

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