Why Mera From Aquaman Looks So Familiar

Aquaman is rolling out to theaters around the world, introducing audiences to a host of new characters beyond the always-charming Jason Momoa in the title role. One character who we've long known was going to be important is Mera, played by Amber Heard. Heard originated the role as a cameo in 2017's Justice League, but now we're seeing more of the woman who (in the comics, at least) would go on to marry Aquaman.

Beyond her Justice League appearance, you might not recognize Amber Heard in the role of Mera. That bright red hair isn't her usual look, for one thing. Most of the time she's blonde, and looks much less like a warrior mermaid. Even if you don't know Heard on sight, however, there's a good chance you've seen her in other roles. She was born in Texas in 1986, and has been making a name for herself in Hollywood since her late teens. Let's take a look at the major stepping stones in Amber Heard's career.

Amber Heard was the female lead in Hidden Palms, a 2007 CW series from Kevin Williamson, creator of Dawson's Creek. The show was a teen drama about dark secrets lurking underneath the sun-drenched surface of an affluent Palm Springs neighborhood. Heard played Greta, the mysterious girl next door who's immediately fascinating to the series lead, but who's also at the center of several local mysteries. It was a pretty by-the-book role for a young actress, but Heard stood out from the pack, as did costar Tessa Thompson.

The series itself, however, was a complete bust. It got a summer order of eight initial episodes, and was canceled due to low ratings by the time all eight had aired. It's largely forgotten today, but it did raise Amber Heard's profile enough to help her launch her film career, which no doubt benefited from this show ending too soon for her to be tied to it. She'd be a big star before much longer.

Pineapple Express, coming right on the heels of Never Back Down, was the movie that really made Amber Heard a star. She plays a high school senior in an ill-advised relationship with the movie's stoner process server hero, played by Seth Rogen. It's a unique part, because the fact that Rogen's manchild of an adult is dating a teenager is played for laughs, but Heard's character isn't treated like a joke. She's still a female character in a male-centric stoner buddy comedy, so it's not like she gets all that much to do, but she's at least treated like a real person with her own needs and wants, rather than just candy for Seth Rogen's arm.

Produced by Judd Apatow and directed by indie darling David Gordon Green, Pineapple Express was both a hit and a much-discussed comedy of 2008. Rogen and costar James Franco were already big stars, but it took at least three people's careers to the next level: Green himself, supporting player Danny McBride, and of course rising ingenue Amber Heard.

In 2011 Heard returned to TV, but found no more success this time around than she had with Hidden Palms. The Playboy Club was at least splashier to start with, a historical drama for NBC about the women working at the original Playboy Club in 1961 Chicago. It was one of several shows in the years after Mad Men's success to look for success in the same midcentury period as that series, inevitably leading to far less acclaim. Heard played Maureen, a young woman who becomes a Playboy Bunny shortly after arriving in the city on the run from a dark past.

The nature of Maureen's past was never explored, as it turns out, because The Playboy Club was cancelled after only three episodes. NBC's network standards were a hindrance to the kind of adult themes the setting seemed to demand, and ratings were terrible from day one. Once again, Amber Heard failed to find a home on an ongoing TV series, but movies were still waiting.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a slasher-style horror movie about an unusual high school girl, and the secrets she does her best to keep as the other teens around her start dying. Amber Heard played the title role, and it might have been her breakout part if the movie had come out as originally planned. It was filmed in 2006, before almost everything on this list, with a 20-year-old Heard perfectly cast as the mysterious Mandy. Unfortunately, the Weinstein Company declined to distribute it, and the company they handed it off to went out of business. The movie went unreleased in the United States for seven years, before finally coming out on video in 2013, after Amber Heard was enough of a star to get people to watch it.

It's a strange time capsule when it comes to Heard's career, but All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is also a pretty fun teen horror comedy, and it raises interesting questions about the Scream Queen Amber Heard might have become if this was the movie people saw her in first.

Interestingly, Amber Heard plays a glamorous government assassin again in 3 Days To Live, but in a somewhat less outrageous (if not actually more realistic) context. The film stars Kevin Costner as a veteran CIA agent with an estranged family and terminal cancer. Heard's younger and more ruthless agent is tasked with manipulating him into hunting down one last target by offering him an experimental cure for his illness. Ultimately, she turns out to be a more sympathetic character than she originally seems, helping Costner's character in the end, even when he declines to assassinate the target himself.

3 Days To Live is one of those "Aging Baby Boomer" action movies, where an older man proves that he still has what it takes to get the job done. Thankfully, unlike some movies of this type, the protagonist's focus remains on his family, meaning that Amber Heard (in her late 20s at the time) is never asked to be a love interest for the 60ish Kevin Costner.