For young readers, few characters loom quite as large as the Trunchbull.
In Roald Dahl’s 1988 children’s novel “Matilda,” Trunchbull is the formidable headmistress of Crunchem Hall elementary school, where she swings a “naughty” student by her pigtails and forces another to devour an entire chocolate cake. She’s brawny, brutish — and precisely the sort of challenge Emma Thompson was looking for as an actor.
