Laura Dern has said that it was a “great privilege” for her original Jurassic Park family to team up with the new Jurassic World stars to create the latest movie in the franchise.
Jurassic World: Dominion sees Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Dern reprise the roles which they first played nearly 30 years ago in the original 1993 film.
Directed by Colin Trevorrow, the film will also see the return of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, along with new cast members.
Dern, who is back as Dr Ellie Sattler, told the PA news agency that returning to the franchise was “amazing”.
She said: “This is family and certainly for Jeff and Sam and I, and Steven Spielberg, we became a family all those years ago.
“And so to now join in on this newer family with Colin at the lead and of course Chris and Bryce, and now have amazing DeWanda (Wise) and Mamoudou (Athie) with us, so many incredible actors, it’s really been a great privilege.”
The film had begun production when the pandemic started and was one of the first to return once restrictions eased.
Dern said the whole team had a chance to really bond during this time as they had to live together while filming as part of the Covid safety precautions.
She praised the cast and crew for what they sacrificed to ensure the film production could be completed, to help revive the industry, recalling how Goldblum would play the piano for the team and they would have music and game nights together.
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She added: “We had an amazing familial experience, eating and sharing and taking care of each other.
“Bryce and I had to be away from our families for a long time and all the sacrifices everybody was making in their workplace. Some far greater than this, of course, like our frontline workers.
“But we wanted to get our industry back again and I think every crew member on this film, who were such a major part of that, are grateful that we supported the initiation back to work.”
Goldblum, who will return as Ian Malcolm, agreed that he found joining the Jurassic World generation “very exciting”.
He told the PA news agency: “I always wanted to be an actor and there’s hardly a part of acting that excites me more than getting to work with actors, I’m kind of starstruck and lovestruck with creative pretenders and actors.
“Laura Dern is a master of the cinematic arts and so is Sam Neill and getting to do that 30 years ago with them and it coming out nicely with the great Steven Spielberg directing our activities and people liking it over these decades was thrilling.
“So getting back for the first time since we’ve been on screen together was so exciting.”
The new film is set four years after the destruction of the Jurassic World theme park at Isla Nublar, when genetically engineered dinosaurs were auctioned off by companies and released into the human world.
It will be the third film of the Jurassic World series and the sixth instalment of the Jurassic Park franchise.
Jurassic World: Dominion will be released in UK cinemas on June 10.