Laura Dern has said she never felt the age difference between her and Sam Neill in Jurassic Park was unreasonable until recently.
Dern was just 23 when she starred in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film, while her co-star Neill was 44.
In a new interview with the Sunday Times, Neill noted that Dern was at a “tender age” when they made the film.
However, Dern said that at the time it “felt totally appropriate to fall in love with Sam Neill.”
“And only now, as we came back in a moment of cultural awareness of patriarchy, I was like, ‘Wow! We’re not the same age?’” she said.
Speaking of his own experience of the age gap, Neill said: “I’m 20 years older than Laura! Which was a perfectly reasonable age difference for a leading man and a leading lady at the time.”
Dern and Neill in Jurassic Park
(Amblin/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock)
He continued, “It never crossed my mind until I opened a magazine and there was an article called ‘Old Geezers and Girls.’ People like Harrison Ford and Sean Connery play with much younger people. And there I was, on the list. I thought, ‘Come on. This can not be true.'”
Dern and Neill are reprising their Jurassic Park roles in Jurassic World Dominion, out June 10.