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Jurassic Park's Laura Dern and Sam Neill Address Their 20-Year Age Gap


Jurassic World: Dominion will feature the highly-anticipated reunion of the original Jurassic Park trio: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum who will all reprise their respective roles from the film that started it all. Neill and Dern's respective characters fell in love during the film despite the 20-year age gap between the actors.

Speaking recently with The Sunday Times, Dern and Neill looked back on the romantic storyline between their respective characters in the first Jurassic Park film. While they were aware since then about the 20-year age gap, neither of them was too concerned about it.

"I am 20 years older than Laura!," Neill said. "Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady. [The age gap being inappropriate] 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 added, "Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill. 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?’"

As they've mentioned, times are different now where people are more aware and are now also criticizing the old Hollywood practice of having a significant age gap between an older leading man and a younger leading woman. The age gap difference in the first Jurassic Park might be jarring for some, but the actors seem to be fine with it at the end and they respect each other even today when they worked together again.

Jurassic: World Dominion's logline reads: "Dominion takes place four years after Isla Nublar has been destroyed. Dinosaurs now live—and hunt—alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history’s most fearsome creatures."

Also Read: Jurassic World: Dominion is the Final Film in the Franchise According to Chris Pratt

The film is set to be released in theaters on June 10.

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