My Girl Star Anna Chlumsky turns 30, back in action

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henry

23 May, 2010

Anna Chlumsky, the 'My Girl' girl experienced a pleasant shock at last year's Sundance Film Festival when a woman spotted her in a shop and said, ''In the Loop' - you were great.'

ANNA CHLUMSKY, the "My Girl" girl experienced a pleasant shock at last year's Sundance Film Festival when a woman spotted her in a shop and said, "'In the Loop' - you were great."

"I was just like, 'Oh, my God, I'm so happy," Chlumsky recalls over coffee and pastry at her favorite little French cafe in the Chelsea neighborhood.

Although "My Girl" came out in 1991, the year after "Home Alone" turned co-star Macaulay Culkin into a kid icon, Chlumsky says strangers still ask almost daily whether she's that girl - never mind that she has abandoned acting, graduated from the University of Chicago and briefly pursued careers in food writing and book publishing before attempting a comeback.

And never mind that - brace yourself - the cherub-faced, puffy-lipped kid in "My Girl" will turn 30 this year.

To those fans, "I look just the same," she says with a laugh.

Well, she's still on the petite side, with those dramatic blue eyes and pouty mouth, but as she walks into the cafe in her black T-shirt and jeans, she projects the casual elegance of a woman who has grown to feel at home in New York City. Her supporting role as a diplomat's brainy aide in "In the Loop," released last year to critical acclaim, was a high point in the relatively new, not-quite-above-the-radar adult phase of her acting career, which also has included some TV series appearances and off-Broadway roles.

"What's interesting about Anna is she did the child acting and then very consciously decided to go into the outside world and get a dose of reality and go to college and get a 9 to 5 job, and then she's able to bring that experience back into her acting."

She starred in the sequel "My Girl 2" and was Sissy Spacek's daughter in "Trading Mom" (both 1994), and she co-starred with Christina Ricci in "Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain" the following year. Little did she know that she wouldn't appear in another widely released theatrical film until "In the Loop."