Laura Dern, Sam Neill discuss 20-year age gap of their 'Jurassic Park' romance
While "Jurassic Park" is universally thought of as a family-friendly film, Laura Dern and Sam Neill are questioning how "appropriate" their onscreen romance really was.
"I am 20 years older than Laura! Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady!" Neill, who played paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, told The Sunday Times.
"Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill," Dern, who played paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, chimed in. "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?'"
Neill joked about how the age difference of their characters in the blockbuster film "never occurred" to him until he read a magazine article about male actors who had female co-stars much younger than them.
"And there I was, on the list," Neill recalled of seeing his name alongside the likes of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. "I thought, 'Come on. It can't be true.'"
"Jurassic Park," released in 1993, was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the late author Michael Crichton's novel of the same name.
Dern, 55, and Neill, 74, reunite with their fellow "Jurassic Park" co-stars Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong in the forthcoming "Jurassic World Dominion" alongside Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard when it arrives on the big screen June 10.
