Whatever Happened To Helen From Waterworld

If its detractors are to be trusted (and few who saw it could be described as "supporters"), 1995's Waterworld was not Jeanne Tripplehorn's finest moment. In fact, it could hardly have been the finest moment of anyone who appeared in or was at all involved with the flick. Jeanne Tripplehorn, whose on-screen acting career began in the '90s, stars as female lead Helen in the aquatic dystopian epic opposite the web-toed Kevin Costner. It's really quite a spectacle.

The failure of Waterworld could have threatened a promising career, but luckily the watery disaster was far from Tripplehorn's only noteworthy credit. (Kevin Costner also managed to bounce back, for whatever that's worth.) Jeanne Tripplehorn kept pushing and has enjoyed quite the career in Hollywood, spending more and more time on screens big and small since the mid-'90s. And she doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. Here's what happened to Helen from Waterworld.

In the early-to-mid-nineties Jeanne Tripplehorn and comic actor Ben Stiller were a popular couple. Tripplehorn appeared on three episodes of The Ben Stiller Show and in 1993, the same year she played Tom Cruise's wife in The Firm, Tripplehorn and Stiller were engaged to be married. Unfortunately for fans of the pairing, the engagement was called off when the couple split in 1996.

Both Tripplehorn and Stiller kept quiet about the reasons for the break-up, though a People column from May 1995 could be revealing. Back then columnist Mitchell Fink claimed he discovered that Tripplehorn initially left Stiller for Waterworld stuntman David Barrett. Fink dished that Tripplehorn decided she'd made a mistake and ditched Barrett in hopes of reconciling with Stiller. 

If Fink's report is true, then it seems likely the couple did get back together at some point, because their permanent split didn't come until the following year. Why the later split happened is anyone's guess, though if you start dating one person while you're already engaged to another — regardless of the reason — it seems likely that your relationship is already on pretty shaky ground.

In 2006, Jeanne Tripplehorn landed a role that brought her back to the spotlight in a big way. In her first starring role in a television series, Tripplehorn was cast in the HBO drama Big Love. The acclaimed series follows the Fundamentalist Mormon Henrickson family who still practice polygamy. The late Bill Paxton plays Bill Henrickson, the family patriarch, and Tripplehorn stars as Bill's first wife Barbara. As the elder wife, Barbara acts as both older sister and mother figure to Bill's other wives Nicolette (Chloë Sevigny) and Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin), though she's unsatisfied with her place in the family.  

Starring on a TV series was clearly a big change for Tripplehorn. During a roundtable interview with the L.A. Times during Big Love's third season, Tripplehorn confessed "by the eighth or ninth episode" of that season she needed "to write down what had already happened" to keep up with the plot. Barbara proved one of the acclaimed series' most complex characters, so much so that Tripplehorn admitted to the L.A. Times that by the third season she still didn't fully understand her character. "She's just really conflicted," Tripplehorn explained. "And then sometimes she's accepting of situations that I would have thought were established that Barb wouldn't like."

Jeanne Tripplehorn also appeared on two episodes of the Fox dramedy New Girl. Tripplehorn played Ouli, who she called the "completely inappropriate and open-minded" ex-wife of Russell (Dermot Mulroney), who at the time was the boyfriend of Jess (Zoey Deschanel). Playing the dreaded Ex, Tripplehorn's Ouli got to make an already awkward situation more awkward by doing things like hugging Jess while naked in a steam room.

Tripplehorn told The Hollywood Reporter she was already a regular New Girl watcher when she got the call from series creator Liz Meriwether, and that getting a spot on the show was like "getting an invitation to a really good party." More than that, it was a welcome return to comedy for Tripplehorn, something she told THR she craved. While she's become known more for serious drama, her earlier career had plenty of comedy credits, like The Ben Stiller Show and Mr. Show. 

"I left Julliard and immediately started getting cast in dramas," Tripplehorn explained, "which was great, but comedy has always been where my heart is. In Hollywood, when they get you pegged, it's really hard to get out from under people's perceptions of you."

The first major talent departure from Criminal Minds was the series star Mandy Patinkin. CBS announced in July 2007 that Patinkin had asked to be released from his contract after failing to show up at a table read during the third season. In September 2012, as Jeanne Tripplehorn's time on Criminal Minds was just beginning, Patinkin opened up about his departure from the series to New York Magazine, calling his decision to ever appear on the show his "biggest public mistake."

Patinkin described working on the series as something that was mentally and spiritually harrowing. "I never thought they were going to kill and rape all these women every night, every day... It was very destructive to my soul and my personality." Patinkin went on to attack Criminal Minds and shows like it. "Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story," Patinkin warned. "This isn't what you need to be dreaming about."

Tripplehorn didn't buy Patinkin's criticisms. She called out the actor publicly, pointing out that Patinkin's new series — Showtime's Homeland — was just as violent as Criminal Minds. "I think it's really funny that people are giving it (his view) any kind of attention," Tripplehorn mused. She also implied that Patinkin's stated grievances weren't the end of the story. "I don't know the relationship he had with the producers and network," Tripplehorn said, "and I think there's a lot more going on (with Patinkin) that's none of my business."