Anna Chlumsky from My Girl

When I was growing up I had a crush on Vada. No, not the seven foot tall Sith Lord who didn't pay a penny of child support for his twin offspring, but the second most famous Vada in movie history - Vada Sultenfussin My Girl.

Actress Anna Chlumsky was just ten years old when she was cast as the daughter of an undertaker (played by Dan Aykroyd) whose best friend dies from an allergic reaction to wasp stings, in the surprisingly uplifting My Girl.

It wouldn't be remiss of you to assume this was Anna's first foray into the acting world, but you'd be wrong. Chlumsky began modelling aged just ten months and as soon as she could speak, began acting in local productions in her native Chicago, including Annie, at which the My Girl casting director discovered her.

She bonded with her My Girl co-star Macaulay Culkin through their mutual love of practical jokes, admitting in a 1991 interview in Big Magazine that Jacko's old pal had once stuck her backside to a toilet seat, "He stuck double-sided sticky tape to the loo and I sat on it! It wasn't like Superglue or anything, but it hurt!"

For the next six years after My Girl, Anna continued to act sparingly, choosing her projects such as My Girl 2, carefully. She screen tested for Jurassic Park and is rumoured to have turned down Beethoven and a sitcom based around her. She said at the time, "It's weird being a kid and having a job."

By 1994, signs were appearing that Chlumsky had aspirations for a career beyond acting. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the then 13-year-old said, "I want to be a paleontologist. I love dinosaurs."

So it was no surprise that the actress turned her back on acting in 1998 to concentrate on her stronger desire: to gain an education. In June 2002, Anna graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree, not in dinosaurs, but International Studies.

That same year, Chlumsky moved to New York to begin a writing career specialising in travel, food and music for the Manhattan based restaurant guide, Zagat. "I ended upmaking a bargain with God. Wherever you give me a job, that's where I'll go."

The acting bug resurfaced in 2004 and Anna returned to the stage as Isabella in a non-profit production of Measure For Measure in Queens. In the production notes for the performance Anna explained she'd taken several years off from acting to "assess what I really wanted to do. For so long I had suppressed it and all of a sudden I was like, Anna, what the heck is wrong with you?"

Now aged 24, Anna splits her time between her two loves, acting and writing, and is a member of the Poor Artist's Collective for whom she regularly performs. Having seen Anna's cast photo I can confirm I still have a crush on her.

In a recent interview, Dan Aykroyd suggested a third My Girl movie was in the pipeline focusing on the adult Vada Sultenfuss. So, you never know, Vada could be making a return in My Girl Episode III: Revenge of the Wasps. Maybe not, either way - check out what she looks like now.

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