Laura Dern & ‘Jurassic Park’ Co-Star Sam Neill Address Whether Their Characters’ 20-Year Age Gap Was ‘Completely Appropriate’

By Brent Furdyk. Published: 22 May 2022 2:30 PM Last updated: 22 May 2022 2:34 PM

From left to right, actors Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm, Richard Attenborough as John Hammond, Laura Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler and Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant in a scene from the "Jurassic Park", 1993. — Photo by Murray Close/Getty Images

Laura Dern is reuniting with her “Jurassic Park” co-star Sam Neill for “Jurassic World: Dominion”, the latest sequel spawned from the franchise that kicked off with the 1993 blockbuster.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, the two actors address the two-decade age gap between their characters, palaeontologist Dr. Alan Grant and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler.

“I am 20 years older than Laura!” Neill pointed out.

“Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady!” he added.

“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, referencing Ford, then 55, starring opposite 29-year-old Anne Heche in “Six Days, Seven Nights”, and Connery’s role opposite 39-years-younger Catherine Zeta-Jones in “Entrapment”.

“And there I was, on the list,” he recalled. “I thought, ‘Come on. It can’t be true.'”

Dern, who was just 23 when she made “Jurassic Park”, backed up Neill.

“Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill,” she 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?’”