Then and Now: Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park: Then and Now

It’s over 22 years since Jurassic Park was first released bringing dinosaurs and scientific inaccuracies to the big screen with ground-breaking special effects we’d never seen before. After a couple of dud sequels the franchise is back in the mega bucks with the latest instalment Jurassic World now the fastest release to take over $1 billion worldwide at the box office.

As we’ve done before with Back to the Future, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, The Goonies and Beetlejuice, we thought we’d take a look back at the cast of Jurassic Park and see what they’re up to now.

Sam Neill – Dr Alan Grant
Neill’s first major role came in the third Omen instalment Omen III: The Final Conflict, playing an adult Damien Thorn and screen-tested to replace Roger Moore as James Bond before missing out to Timothy Dalton.

After Jurassic Park Neill featured in the live action version of The Jungle Book, as Merlin in the TV mini-series of the same name and hosted and narrated the documentary series Space for the BBC before reprising his role as Dr Grant in Jurassic Park III. More recently he’s appeared in The Tudors as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the short lived JJ Abrams series Alcatraz and in Peaky Blinders as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell.

Laura Dern – Dr Ellie Sattler
Before appearing in Jurassic Park, Dern had a steady film career both on the big screen and in TV movies, earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Rambling Rose in 1992 before winning a Golden Globe for her role in Afterburn a year later.

Like Neill, she also reprised her role in Jurassic Park III and won two further Golden Globes after appearing in Recount (2009) and Enlightened (2012). Most recently Dern has returned to film work, with The Fault in Our Stars and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her part in Wild.

Jeff Goldblum – Dr Ian Malcolm
By the time Jurassic Park hit our screens in 1993, Goldblum had already been working in film roles for nearly 20 years, including arguably his most famous early role in David Cronenberg’s sci-fi horror film The Fly from 1986.

After impressing in a supporting role in Jurassic Park, he’d go on to take the lead in the sequel The Lost World, although he would not feature again in Jurassic Park III. In between his dinosaur dealings Goldblum, starred alongside Will Smith in the 1996 disaster film Independence Day where he manages to successfully take down an alien invasion with an Apple laptop.

In the last few years he’s had stint on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Portlandia, appeared in The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2014 and is due to reprise his role as David Levinson in Independence Day: Resurgence, a sequel to the original film.

Richard Attenborough – John Hammond

Despite an acting career that spanned over 60 years, at the time Attenborough’s appearance as John Hammond in Jurassic Park marked his first acting role on screen for 14 years. He’d follow this with a lead role in the remake of Miracle of 34th Street, a part in the 1996 of Hamlet before also appearing in The Lost World.

As well as an all-encompassing acting career, Attenborough was equally celebrated as a director and producer, notably winning two Academy Awards for Gandhi (1983) and four BAFTA and four Golden Globe Awards. Lord Attenborough sadly died in the summer of 2014 but his presence was still felt during Jurassic World through the use of archived sound footage.

Ariana Richards – Alexis Murphy
Appeared in Jurassic Park and its sequel, as well as Tremors in 1990 but has not been as regular on screen as her other co-stars. Richards graduated from Skidmore College with a degree in Fine Art and Drama and is now a successful artist currently apprenticing under a professional painter in Oregon.

Joseph Mazzello – Tim Murphy
After appearing in Jurassic Park, Mazzello would reprise his role in The Lost World as Tim Murphy and would go on to have roles in The Cure and in The Social Network as one of the founders of Facebook, Dustin Moskovitz.

As well as his film roles he’s appeared on some big name US TV shows including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Without a Trace, Person of Interest and HBO’s The Pacific.

Wayne Knight – Dennis Nedry
Knight’s Jurassic Park character Dennis Nedry suffered arguably the most infamous death at the hands (or teeth?) of an escaped Dilophosaurus riding shotgun in his Jeep.

While Knight can currently be seen in The Exes he appeared in 3rd Rock from the Sun and had a recurring role as Newman in Seinfeld, a character he’s since reprised briefly for Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

On the big screen Knight starred in Space Jam as Michael Jordan’s assistant Stan Podolak and had voice roles in The Brave Little Toaster and Toy Story 2.

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