Heather Matarazzo

"People still come up to me and say, 'Wow, I expected you to be uglier, Wienerdog.'"

Heather Mazaratto is unsure of whether to take this near implicit slogan as an insult or a compliment.
After some laborious Heather-stalking (brought on by the sole factor that she is the first known human not only born on my birthday, the 10th of November, but also in my birth year.. yes, yes, I’m meticulously abnormal for caring) I can attest to the fact that yes, Heather plays the part of some darn hideous girls.

I can respect her because she doesn’t dig the entire Hollywood thing, not that "the Hollywood thing" is categorically a “Bad Thing” but I guess, she is not afraid to play decidedly unglamorous parts, in fact, she right royal loves them. And it’s not necessarily the perversity that draws her in either, it’s simply the opportunity to be a part of something everybody hasn’t already seen a trillion times before. Some examples of these unexpected, sometimes deviant roles are:

• The ever-present Wienerdog, Dawn Wiener, the brainchild of cinematic genius Todd Solondz; an awkward, hated middle school girl who needs attention so badly that rape threats morph into some breed of relationship with an equally troubled brattish punk. (“Welcome to the Dollhouse”)
• a molested student in The Devil's Advocate.
• a mentally retarded gang rape victim in 1999’s television ‘blockbuster’ “Our Guys: Outrage in Glen Ridge”.
• and most recently, Heather Wiseman, who is the abandoned daughter of some superhero fashioned by the government in the sci-fi drama Now and Again.

Now and Again creator Glenn Gordon Caron gushes: "In a really good way, Heather's the antithesis of what we've come to expect from young actors, she has such a unique look, and her instincts are flawless. I feel I could write anything for her and she'd nail it."
It should be noted that Heather was given the part without even auditioning.

She’s ‘distinctive’ and driven and self-assured, along with talented, but to be honest? I just like her cause she’s so ugly in Dollhouse that she becomes cute, so pathetic that I could not stop laughing the entire time.
_{(and we share the same birthday)}

Actress filmography:
Now and Again (1999)
Company Man (1999)
Our Guys: Outrage at Glen Ridge (1999)
Cherry (1999)
Getting to Know You (1999)
Cuisine américaine (1998)
54 (1998)
Hurricane Streets (1998)
Strike (1998)
The Deli (1997)
The Devil's Advocate (1997)
Arresting Gena (1997)
Roseanne (1988) TV Series
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995)
The Adventures of Pete and Pete (1993)

Music video fans may recognize Heather from her appearances in Nada Surf's Treehouse and Sheryl Crow's A Change Will Do You Good. She has also recorded R. L. Stine's popular Ghost of Fear Street as an audio book for Simon & Schuster.