Former Australian child star Cariba Heine is finding a second life on screen, telling The Morning Show her new Netflix series has become an unexpectedly cathartic way to process the realities of growing up in the spotlight.
The South African-born Australian actress is celebrating the long-awaited return of Everyone's Doing Great, a comedy drama following former teen television stars navigating adulthood, fading fame, and the pressure of trying to reinvent themselves after early success.
For Heine, the story cuts close to home after spending much of her own teenage years on Australian screens in hit series including H2O: Just Add Water, Blue Water High, Dance Academy, and Mako Mermaids.
Catharsis Through Acting
"There's a lot of catharsis that comes with playing these characters as well," Heine told The Morning Show from Netflix's Los Angeles studios. "So basically, you're just saving on therapy by reliving those experiences through the script."
Heine said the cast frequently pulls directly from real-life experiences in the entertainment industry, often joking that awkward or bizarre encounters will eventually end up written into future episodes.
"We keep sort of getting together and looking at each other and being like, this is what we're doing. We're promoting second season like it happened," she said. "It's a pretty hard thing to process at the moment. I don't actually think that any of us truly are there."
Challenges Behind Breakout Roles
The actress reflected on some of the challenges behind her own breakout roles, including learning to swim before auditioning for H2O: Just Add Water.
"I was a dance nerd, and I had no idea really how to swim well," she admitted, revealing her best friend's mother helped train her ahead of the audition process.
Dance Academy, however, felt far more natural for the trained dancer. "The fact that they cast real dancers, I think, helped that show immensely," she said.
Balancing Motherhood and Career
Now balancing motherhood after welcoming her son last year alongside a busy acting career, Heine said the experience has been far more intense than she expected.
"It is a lot 10,000 times harder, actually, than I thought it would be and a million times more enriching than I thought it would be as well," she said. "So I will take the juggle, and I will continue to fail forward and love every half minute of it."
Season two of Everyone's Doing Great is now streaming on Netflix.
