Harriet the Spy: Behind the Blue Paint Scene

Two decades after the Nickelodeon film’s premiere, the star and director look back on its most dramatic scene.

- Caitlin Brody

For Harriet M. Welsch, not even scrawling the word PRIVATE across a composition notebook could keep snoops at bay. The observant heroine of Louise Fitzhugh’s beloved children’s book and its film adaptation learns this lesson the hard way after her classmates discover Harriet’s not-so-nice musings and retaliate by dumping paint onto her during art class. Twenty years after the movie’s release, director Bronwen Hughes and star Michelle Trachtenberg relive the blue moment.

Harriet the Spy marked Nickelodeon’s first film, but still, some parents thought it was too dark, even suggesting that it touched on suicide.

BRONWENHUGHES (Director) When your friends turn against you as a kid, it’s the end of your life as you know it. I wanted the scene to feel true. It wasn’t some happy go-lucky comedy moment with blue paint, but a devastating psychological assault.

MICHELLETRACHTENBERG (Harriet) It was a really hard scene because in my own life, I’d been bullied up until the day I graduated. It was emotional, which was the point.