In 1993, Steven Spielberg‘s jaw-dropping dinosaur adventure film “Jurassic Park” changed the landscape of the film industry as it ushered-in major advancements in CGI, leading to the slow death of the demand for practical effects. The film’s behemoth success inspired studios to focus on effects-heavy blockbusters and it also arguably helped to push George Lucas to return to the “Star Wars” universe with new VFX toys to realize the vision of his prequels.
However, while the film gave audiences a glimpse of the future of filmmaking, it also reinforced an old Hollywood trope as Sam Neill‘s Alan Grant and Lauren Dern‘s Ellie Sattler, the movie’s protagonist couple, had a 20 year age gap that was glaring even back in the early 1990s. Dern was 23 at the time of filming.
The two actors spoke with The Sunday Times, reflecting on that age difference in the nearly 30-year-old film and giving their own takes on it.
“I am 20 years older than Laura! Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady,” Neill said while recalling when he realized that maybe the pairing wasn’t “completely appropriate” after all.
“It never occurred to me until I opened a magazine and there was an article called ‘Old Geezers and Gals.’ People like Harrison Ford and Sean Connery acting with much younger people,” Neill continued. “And there I was, on the list. I thought, ‘Come on. It can’t be true.'”
Dern also shares her own perspective of the on-screen relationship.
“Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill,” Dern said. “And it was only now, when we returned in a moment of cultural awareness about the patriarchy, that I was, like, ‘Wow! We’re not the same age?'”
Interestingly enough, Joe Johnston‘s “Jurassic Park III” sort of established that the two had a falling out as Dern’s character is now married to someone else and has a young son, Grant’s feelings on children perhaps being part of that. Sattler and her son actually become an important plot element in the third act and help rescue the team of characters at the end.
Both Dern and Neill alongside fellow franchise alumni Jeff Goldblum, who played a potential romantic rival of Alan Grant and led his own sequel with “The Lost World,” will return for “Jurassic World: Dominion” which will be released on June 10.