When Jurassic Park was released in 1993, all adults looked pretty much the same age to us. But in an interview with The Sunday Times over the weekend, stars of the film Laura Dern and Sam Neill have reflected on what was apparently a 20 year age gap between them when they made the movie.
The stars have shared that it didn't really occur to them it wasn’t "completely appropriate" until time had passed. Dern played palaeobotanist Dr Ellie Sattler and Sam Neill played the character of palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant as they came to assess a new theme park with some surprising living attractions.
And what some fans were surprised to learn was that Dern was only the "tender age" of 23 at the time whereas her co-star Sam, born in 1947, was in his early 40s.
In The Sunday Times interview Neill says: "I am 20 years older than Laura! Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady." He continued: "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. And there I was, on the list. I thought, 'Come on. It can’t be true'."
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Dern also reflected on the age-gap with hindsight saying that it was "only now" she realises it might have been inappropriate. She said: "It was when we returned in a moment of cultural awareness about the patriarchy, that I was, like, “Wow! We’re not the same age?'"
Fans on Twitter appeared to be as shocked as Laura and Sam when they were faced with the stark realities of time. @stingo__cam said: "It's hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that Laura Dern is 23 in Jurassic Park because to me she was a capital A adult in that movie, perhaps even up to 50 years old."
And @happninsteph agreed that learning Laura's age in 1993 was a shock: "So Laura Dern looked like she was thirty in her twenties, and looks thirty in her fifties. I honestly think that’s the best luck ever for her career and just as a normal woman."
Jurassic World: Dominion is out in cinemas on June 10.
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