Jurassic World Dominion star Laura Dern recalls surviving a category 4 hurricane while filming the original Jurassic Park. Dern joined the long-running franchise in 1993 with the original Steven Spielberg film. The movie was immediately beloved by critics and audiences alike, pulling in nearly $1 billion at the box office. This made it the top grossing movie of all-time until Titanic was released four years later. Dern starred as the young paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler, who joined Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) on a tour of a state-of-the-art theme park that contained resurrected dinosaurs. However, Sattler and the others soon find themselves running for their lives when the park is sabotaged by a disgruntled employee, releasing dinosaurs from their enclosures.
Production on Jurassic Park began in 1992 on the island of Kaua'i in Hawaii, due to its beautiful scenery and lush forests. On September 11, 1992, the island was hit by Hurricane Iniki, a category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds that cause over $3 billion worth of damage. Iniki was the most powerful hurricane to hit the state of Hawaii. Much of the original Jurassic Park set was destroyed during the storm. However, shots of the hurricane were used in the final film as the workers of the island attempt to leave Isla Nublar before the storm hits.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Dern recalled surviving a powerful hurricane while filming the original Jurassic Park. When discussing the legacy of the first film in the Jurassic franchise ahead of Dominion's release, the actor was asked if there was a specific memory that resurfaced when she met all of her co-stars again. Dern shared that there were so many, but surviving a hurricane together was unforgettable:
Exclusive: "I mean, so many. Honestly, so many memories from the film; from the making of the film. We went through a level five [it is officially categorized at level 4] hurricane together - it was a very traumatic and bonding experience on the first film."
With Hurricane Iniki being regarded as the worst hurricane to hit the state in recorded history, living through that experience would certainly be something that one would not forget. Although early warning systems failed the people of Hawaii, Dern and the Jurassic Park cast and crew managed to wait it out in their hotel on Kaua'i. Since the hurricane hit on the final day of shooting on-location, the catastrophe ultimately resulted a minimal delay of production. However, much of the area was left severely damaged, and sadly six people lost their lives.
Living through such a violent hurricane, whether working on a major film or not, is an event that would surely bond people together through a shared traumatic experience. Such a connection came through on the original Jurassic Park film, though the characters' chemistry was present well before the disaster, and helped propel the film to be an incredibly successful blockbuster in the summer of 1993. Dern returns to her role as Ellie Sattler in Jurassic World Dominion, once again reuniting with the original co-stars with whom she shared one of the most memorable periods of her life.