Waterworld was in many ways a trailblazer. Long before we got bombarded with dozens of post-apocalyptic dramas, the movie painted a graphic picture of what life could look like once everything’s gone belly-up in the world.
The 1995 film didn’t go down desperately well with the critics, and it received mixed reviews. There was also tension behind the scenes, alongside production problems.
The budget over-ran spectacularly, and at the time it was the most expensive Hollywood film ever made. It was originally slated to cost $100m (about £80m) but it ended up costing the equivalent of about £140m.
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Although it completely bombed at the box office, the show’s stellar cast, including Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper, helped drag it over the line into profitability many years later. Another star of Waterworld was Tina Majorino, who got her big break in the film playing young Enola.
(Image: Getty Images)
She would go on to bag a cult role in one of the most popular films of the noughties and is now unrecognisable as she pursues a new career away from the silver screen. Here we take a look at Tina’s career and what she’s up to now.
Her character was a pivotal one in the film, helping to hold the storyline together, and it helped Tina make a name for herself in the acting world. Before Waterworld, she’d already been in Camp Wilder, a US television drama that was a bit of a flop and was cancelled after 19 episodes.
She’d also had a couple of big-screen roles, in When A Man Loves A Woman and Corrina, Corrina – the latter as part of a cast list that included Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg.
After Waterworld and an appearance in the 1999 version of Alice in Wonderland, Tina walked away from the business to enjoy her teenage years.
She previously told MovieHole: “I took time off from the time I was 13 until I was 18. I wanted to take that time to be a kid and make sure that acting was really what I wanted to do.
“I had been working on back-to-back projects since I was three so I was happy to get to spend time with friends and family. I’m either all in or it doesn’t feel right so taking that break gave me a chance to get to know myself better and make the decision to act again.”
When she returned to acting, she was able to land her other most notable role, one that re-introduced her to a whole new audience. She played Deb in Napoleon Dynamite – the 2004 coming-of-age flick that has garnered a cult following.
And in the same year, Tina was cast as Cindy “Mac” Mackenzie in a role that had been specifically written for her in TV show Veronica Mars, alongside Kristin Bell. She played Mac for more than 30 episodes as well as starring in the franchise’s 2014 film.
It’s mainly on the small screen that Tina has blossomed in recent years. Among the two dozen or so roles she’s had, 22 appearances as Dr Heather Brooks on Grey’s Anatomy stand out, as well as roles in Bones, True Blood (as Molly), Legends and Scorpion.
But perhaps her best-known TV role was in Big Love. She played Heather Tuttle over six years in the show that saw her get back together with Waterworld co-star Jeanne Tripplehorn.
Tina still has the occasional role – last year she was in an episode of The Good Doctor – although she hasn’t been on the big screen for nearly a decade.
(Image: Getty Images for GQ Magazine)
And it appears she’s happy to explore new career prospects. In 2021, she launched a podcast with her brother Kevin, discussing the effects of the Covid pandemic, wellness and mental health.
She also opened up about her own mental health in an interview with Mental, where she said she’d suffered with anxiety for most of her life.
In it, she said: “It’s hard to be a human. And I’ve struggled a lot. The difference now is that I have a deep knowingness that I’m learning tools that will carry me throughout the rest of my life. Hard times will always come. But I know now I can handle them, whatever they may look like.”
While she may no longer be acting as much as she was, Waterworld all those years ago helped give her a platform for what she’s achieved since then.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
