And the Rising Star extravaganza continues this week, with already the fourth actress in the spotlights (don't worry, this is the last one for the week... I think). And again, I chose a young actress from popular TV-series Big Love (of which I finished the first season DVD-box yesterday night, anxious to see what will happen next). This time, we put the spotlights on Tina Majorina, an actress who wrote her own screenplay before she even acted in her first movie... At eight years old!
I'm guessing most people know Tina from Napleon Dynamite, in which she portrayed the shy, bumbling girlfriend of our hero Napoleon, a role with which she easily stole the hearts of geeks and non-geeks around the world (don't know if the name of Tina 'come get some ham' the Lama was actually based on her real name or not). Watching Napoleon Dynamite, there was a nagging suspicion in my mind that I had already seen this girl somewhere else before and looking Tina up on IMDB confirmed this. For Tina has been highly active in the years 1994 and 1995, appearing in no less than four big Hollywood movies before she turned ten. This started with her first movie role in Meg Ryan/Andy Garcia-starrer When a Man Loves a Woman, where she played one of the daughters of Ryan's alcohol abusing housewife. This was followed by another role as daughter (one of the few options for actresses of that age, I guess) in Corrina Corrina, this time opposite Ray Liotta and Whoopi Goldberg. Thirdly came family movie Andre, in which she acted opposite, well, a seal, in this no doubt heartwarming tale of a young girl who saves the seal's life, after which he comes back to meet her every single year of his life.
Tina's big splash came with Waterworld (pun intended), at that time the most expensive movie ever. Tina's character has a map on her back that leads to the last dry place on the planet, and which is wanted by both the good guys and the bad guys in the movie. Incidentally, she starred in the movie with later Big Love co-star Jeanne Tripplehorn. After Waterworld, Tina appeared in several smaller movies, before taking a break from movies, which lasted five years. "Taking 5 years off was the best decision I've made so far," she later said in an interview. "For myself and for my career. People always say, "But you could've been so famous by now if you would've just worked during those 5 years!" I'm not in it for the fame and it's definitely not worth it to me to have the fame but no sense of who I am whatsoever. I didn't want to become so many of the young people I've worked with who have money, fame, and success but don't know who they are as people. At the end of the day, just because one of your films does well at the box office that doesn't make you a good person. It doesn't make you strong, smart, or secure either. I'd rather have those three things and know that if I decided to quit this job tomorrow that I could make it comfortably through the rest of my life because I know myself very well, then have fame and a bunch of money that's never going to buy me a manual to me."
Her first movie after coming back re-established her presence in movies in the blink of an eye. Napoleon Dynamite was a huge success, and her character was an integral part of that success. Though overshadowed by the greatness of the main character and his side-kick Pedro, Uncle Rico and brother Kip, Tina's performance as sweet Deb stole not just Napoleon Dynamite's heart. And off-screen, she was the person responsible for teaching actor Jon Heder do the masterful dance at the end of the movie, having been a hiphop dancing instructor for more than eight years. Dancing isn't her only interest, since she also likes surfing, martial art Tang Soo Doo (for which she has a black belt) and singing, even having written her first original screenplay when she was only 8 years old!
Nowadays, Tina is most known from her two television series, Veronica Mars and the aforementioned Big Love. While these two keep her very busy, I'm pretty sure we can expect more great things from her in the movies.
Check her fan site:
www.tmajorino.kom.pl
Posted by: Tummi | April 20, 2007 at 07:04 PM