When people talk about the legacy or what makes for a great Jurassic Park film, the focus is usually on groundbreaking visual effects, John Williams’ score, or the super believable on-screen dinosaur moments. Far less discussed is that, during production, the original JP cast and crew found themselves in genuine danger. And I'm not talking about animatronics or special effects but a real-life natural disaster, and franchise OG Sam Neill laid out the entire ordeal.
That experience was revisited just recently via a new interview Neill gave to Entertainment Weekly, as he reflected on returning to the role of Dr. Alan Grant for a Super Bowl commercial. In the process, Neill recalled surviving Hurricane Iniki while filming the movie in Hawaii in 1992. At the time, production had been underway for more than a week. One morning, the cast arrived early as usual, only to be told filming would not continue that day. He explained:
We'd been working in Hawaii for a week or 10 days, and we went down to report for duty at 6:30 in the morning or whatever it is. And they said, 'We're not going to work today...There's a hurricane coming.'
Initially, the threat did not fully sink in. Neill explained that the island grew unusually quiet as the storm approached. The air went still, and the ocean began to behave in unsettling ways, with the tide pulling back from shore.
As conditions worsened, the reality of the situation became clear. The Event Horizon lead and his co-star, Laura Dern, walked down to the beach together, watching the sea recede. The Hunt for the Wilderpeople star also shared a humorously awkward exchange he and Dern had at that moment:
It all went very still. The tide went out a bit. Laura and I went down to the beach, and she said, 'Do you think we might die today?' And I said, 'I think that's entirely possible.'
The cast and crew spent hours sheltering inside a resort ballroom as Hurricane Iniki passed directly over the area. While the storm moved quickly and avoided even greater devastation, it still caused significant destruction. The Peaky Blinders veteran actor added:
Because it traveled very fast, it wasn't a very damaging hurricane, but it did a lot of damage when it was right over the top of us. It destroyed our sets, and it meant we had to travel back to L.A. in two or three days when a plane could actually land — 'cause the airport was covered in dead trees and things.
Days stranded in Hawaii became an unexpected bonding period for the core cast, including Jeff Goldblum and director Steven Spielberg, whom Neill described as particularly entertaining during the downtime. Shared uncertainty and close quarters forged relationships that extended beyond one of the greatest 90s movies.
Looking back, Sam Neill considers Hurricane Iniki the closest he has come to real danger on a film set. Unlike the carefully controlled risks depicted on screen, this was unpredictable and beyond anyone’s control.
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There is an unintended symmetry in that experience. Jurassic Park is, at its core, a story about humanity’s belief that it can master forces larger than itself. So it's ironic that, amid production, the people making the film confronted that same lesson firsthand, not through fiction, but through nature.
For audiences, the dinosaurs remain the most memorable threat of the Jurassic Park universe. For the people making the film, the most frightening moment came when the cameras stopped rolling, and reality took over. Fortunately, they all lived to tell the story and returned to the series many times.
Jurassic Park is a great reason to sign up for an AMC+ subscription, as it is streaming now, and it's a perfect time to revisit the iconic flick.
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