While 1993’s blockbuster Jurassic Park is universally thought of as a family-friendly film, two of its stars now say there was something “inappropriate” about it.
That is to say, Laura Dern‘s paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler and her love interest, Sam Neill‘s paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, were quite the May-December romance.
“I am 20 years older than Laura! Which at the time was a completely appropriate age difference for a leading man and lady,” Neill tells the Sunday Times.
“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?'” added Dern.
However, the actress commented, “Well, it felt completely appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill.”
Neill joked to the paper, “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.'”
In their defense, the characters were closer in age in the late Michael Crichton‘s original Jurassic Park novel.
Dern, 55, and Neill, 77, reunite with other Jurassic Park original stars Jeff Goldblum and BD Wong, as well as Jurassic World‘s Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, in June’s Jurassic World Dominion.
The Universal Pictures film opens June 10.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.