Borderlands star Ariana Greenblatt is no stranger to fandoms – and didn't feel too much pressure when filming the live-action video game adaptation.
"For some reason, I'm always thrown into the fandom. I've dealt with the Marvel and the Star Wars people, and I love them with my whole heart. So diving into this one, I was like, all right, I'm ready," Greenblatt tells 12DOVE.
"But I understand, as a fan myself, I get kind of the connection that they have to these characters and these kind of worlds that you might spend so much time in. I definitely went out of my way to ask fans of the game myself before I went to go film, and ask what they really loved about it," she continues. "But, you know, it's also such a longer format of what they're used to. It's like they play the game and they see these kind of characters come and go, but you're sitting and you're watching them live in real time for so long."
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Greenblatt plays Tiny Tina, a 13-year-old demolitions specialist – who, in the video game sphere, had her own wildly successful spin-off game. The actor also brought Young Gamora to life in Avengers: Infinity War and Young Ahsoka in the Star Wars Disney Plus series. In short, the actor has dealt with not one, but two of the fiercest fandoms in the pop culture game.
Borderlands, directed by Eli Roth from a screenplay he penned with Joe Crombie, sees Lilith (Cate Blanchett) reluctantly returns to her home planet of Pandora to retrieve a bounty – who is none other than 13-year-old Tiny Tina. There she meets up with Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Roland (Kevin Hart), Claptrap (Jack Black), and Dr. Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis). Together they embark on a dangerous journey to save the fate of the universe.
"It was finding that balance between having humanity in these characters that are that are watchable for the people that have no idea what the game are, and then also have those nostalgic factors of the people who do know the game and love the game, and finding that kind of middle ground is important."
Borderlands hits theaters on August 9. For more, check out our ever-growing list of upcoming video game adaptations, or, check out our chat with Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford about the Borderlands Cinematic Universe.
