Tina Turner is an icon, and that's an understatement. She enjoyed a remarkable career, and was able to sell her catalog in the recent years for $50 million.
The artist faced several health complications in the recent years, which included kidney disease, and high blood pressure. Sadly, she passed away on May 24th, 2023. The artist was 83.
In the following, we're going to take a different point of view, featuring Tina Turner's acting career. We'll reveal if acting was ever something she aspired, and what her time was like in the film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. It seems like Tina Turner was a major positive in the film, and she was also a motivator behind the scenes doing her best to get Mel Gibson back on track at the time.
Tina Turner Admitted Her Acting Career Was A Complete Surprise
Speaking alongside the Harvard Business Review, the late Tina Turner made some interesting reveals during her interview in 2021. Among them, Turner admitted that she didn't really have a vision to make it in the music world until she got older.
Turner revealed, "As a teenager I was a nurse’s assistant and looked after small children as well. I always liked kids, and caring for others came naturally to me. My mother thought I would become either a nurse or a teacher, but in my heart of hearts, I knew those paths wouldn’t be mine."
"I did love singing and dancing as a child, and everyone told me how much they enjoyed hearing me sing. But I never thought much of becoming a professional singer until I was older."
As for acting, that came during her fame as an artist, and that was an even bigger surprise and something she had never prayed for in the past.
"Acting in movies was always a big dream, even though I had never expressed it outside my private prayers. So it was a total surprise when I was asked to play a starring role in the rock opera film Tommy. That was a real dream come true, as was starring in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome."
As it turns out, not only was Turner contributing on-camera, but she was also a positive figure behind the scenes, trying to get Mel Gibson's head back on a swivel.
Starring Alongside Mel Gibson In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Tina Turner Did Her Best To Get The Actor Back On Track
Released back in late June of 1985, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome was another success, tripling its budget. Alongside Mel Gibson, Tina Turner was an interesting casting choice, playing the role of Auntie Entity.
The late artist has reportedly turned down The Color Purple in the same year, which featured a plotline that brought back to many scarring memories.
Mel Gibson spoke positively about his time alongside Turner on-set. He admitted to being out of control off-camera, but Turner did her best to ensure that her co-star stayed focused, and made better choices.
Gibson revealed, “I was a wild boy, I used to get loaded. She sent me a photograph of myself one time and she said, ‘Please don’t mess this up’. She was worried about me."
“I was touched by that… That went in somewhere," the actor tells BET.
The two enjoyed great chemistry together, and the film's director George Miller also spoke fondly of his time alongside the late artist in the film.
Tina Turner Enjoyed A Career Resurgence During Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
George Miller spoke about Mad Mac Beyond Thunderdome with Multi Glom. During the interesting interview, the film's director made several reveals. Among them, was the fact that Tina Turner enjoyed a career resurgence during her time in the role. It turned out to be a major positive for her career, and one that also helped her musically.
"No, it was happening while she was filming," the director said about her career comeback.
"I mean, obviously we knew Tina Turner; she’d done concerts twenty years before in Australia with Ike, and I’d seen an interview with her where she spoke about acting, and I remembered it for a long time. But more importantly [when] we actually wrote the character, as a shorthand way of describing the character we said someone “like Tina Turner” – without even thinking of casting her."
Turner was also the first person the director spoke to for the role.
He revealed in the same interview, "So pretty soon when we saw the character, we saw Tina Turner. And then [when we started] casting, the first person we spoke to was Tina Turner. She had recorded Private Dancer by then, but it hadn’t been released, and actually while we were shooting the film she started to chart and was doing well. So it was a matter of timing."
It all worked out for all sides.
