Alisha Weir is Matilda Wormwood

13-year old Irish actor and singer Alisha Weir from Knocklyon in Dublin won the film’s title role after an open casting call. Previous to Matilda the Musical, she appeared in 2019 Irish drama series Darklands and 2018 Ireland-set US horror film Don’t Leave Home, and has since voiced the lead part of Fia in Irish children’s TV series Fia’s Fairies. See her here aged seven singing on Ireland’s Late Late Show in 2017.

Lashana Lynch is Miss Honey

What a coup! Bond, Marvel and The Woman King star Lashana Lynch stopped kicking literal ass on screen long enough to do it figuratively as the mild-mannered but steely cored, sweet-voiced Miss Honey, the teacher who recognises how special Matilda Wormwood is. Lynch plays Nomi, another 007, in 2021’s No Time To Die, and Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel, The Marvels and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. In 2022 she played Izogie in Gina Prince-Bytheood’s all-female African warrior period drama The Woman King.

Fun fact, as reported by WhatsOnStage, Lauren Ward, Gina Beck and Miria Parvin, all of whom played Miss Honey on stage in the West End, can be spotted in the 2022 film’s opening Musical number ‘Miracle’.

Stephen Graham is Mr Wormwood

Matilda’s no-good conman father, as established by the fabulous Paul Kaye in the stage musical, and by Danny DeVito in the 1996 American movie, is played on screen by one of the UK’s finest modern actors, Stephen Graham. Known for collaborating with Shane Meadows on the This Is England film and TV continuation, and later on The Virtues, Graham made his name in the US playing Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire and Scrum in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, and is reliably great in everything, from hit UK crime thriller Line of Duty to Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, to recent tense-a-thon kitchen drama Boiling Point, Save Me, Peaky Blinders and much much more.

Andrea Riseborough is Mrs Wormwood

Best Actress Oscar nominee (for 2022’s drama To Leslie) Andrea Riseborough plays Matilda’s shallow, glamorous and loud-in-every-way mother in the musical film – a role played by Cheers’ Rhea Perlman in the 1996 film (alongside Perlman’s husband Danny DeVito). Riseborough is a celebrated actor, from a very early part as ghost Annie in the (pre-Lenora Crichlow) Being Human pilot, through Brighton Rock to Nocturnal Animals and The Death of Stalin to quality TV including Black Mirror, National Treasure and The Witness for the Prosecution.

Sindhu Vee is Mrs Phelps

Stand-up comedian, actor and writer Sindhu Vee plays mobile librarian Mrs Phelps in the new musical film, a new character to whom Matilda tells her stories, and from whom she gets her beloved books. If you haven’t seen Vee’s stand-up specials, you may have seen her as Olivia’s mother in Netflix’s Sex Education, Karen in Mae Martin autobiographical comedy-drama Feel Good, or Sindhu in Rose Matafeo’s hit rom-com series Starstruck.