Jurassic Park offers viewers one of the best adventures on the big screen. Now we know that the filming of the movie was up to the final product. Because if you roll with dinosaurs, you’re bound to get a bite.
According to Sam Neill’s new memoir, “Did I Ever Tell You?”, the cast of Jurassic Park nearly died during production in September 1992.
“We nearly died during the first few weeks of shooting on Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago,” Neill wrote. “One morning we were told to stay in the hotel and expect a hurricane later.”
“I was on the beach with Laura Dern, who asked me, ‘Sam, do you think we might die today?’ ‘ As those huge black clouds approached over the Pacific I was compelled to tell her that, honestly, the answer was yes, I thought we might die.”
As it turned out, they came very close to dying
The actor also recalled how the cast and crew tried to stay safe during the hurricane.
“We were put in a ballroom, the entire cast and crew, a few hours before Hurricane Iniki hit us,” Neill continued. “Iniki was a Category 4 hurricane and it tore up the island, including all of our sets. It killed six people and caused more than $3 billion worth of damage.”
Hurricane Iniki ended up destroying more than 1,400 homes and the damage is still evident some 30 years later.
“I think within three or four hours she was gone, leaving us surrounded by the wreckage of our huge hotel,” Neill wrote. “I’m pretty sure that’s why we were spared a huge swell going through our ballroom, which was only a couple of feet above sea level.”
Despite their near brush with death, Neil, Dern and Jeff Goldblum became lifelong friends. He also praised Chris Pratt, who joined the franchise in 2015’s Jurassic World, as an “absolutely fantastic” action hero.
“It was great to be in a hit like that, and I owe a lot to Spielberg and everyone involved, but I don’t think the Jurassic Park saga had a big impact on my career,” the actor ends in his memoir.
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