9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

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Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park made stars out of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum. But other famous actors were up for their iconic parts.

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9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park has been lauded as one of the greatest movies ever made, as well as one of the most groundbreaking due to its technical innovations with computer-generated effects. When it hit theaters in 1993, it became the highest-grossing movie of all time and made timeless icons out of every actor in the cast — particularly the central trio of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum.

But none of those actors were the only ones to be offered their roles. Casting a movie is always a difficult challenge because the producers need to find actors who are right for each part and interested in taking them. The roles in Jurassic Park were turned down by a few high-profile stars.

9 William Hurt As Dr. Alan Grant

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

Prior to Sam Neill’s casting as Dr. Alan Grant, the role was offered to William Hurt, now best known as the MCU’s General “Thunderbolt” Ross, but he turned it down.

According to Jody Duncan and Don Shay’s The Making of Jurassic Park, the dino-infested sci-fi actioner simply “didn’t sound like the kind of movie [Hurt] would be interested in making at this time in his life.”

8 Robin Wright As Dr. Ellie Sattler

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

Laura Dern was always Spielberg’s top choice for the role of Dr. Ellie Sattler, but she wasn’t the only actor that the producers offered the role to. Robin Wright was also reportedly offered the role but turned it down.

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A year after Jurassic Park became the highest-grossing movie ever made, Wright starred in her own box office smash, Forrest Gump, alongside an Oscar-winning Tom Hanks. She’s since gone on to star in Netflix’s House of Cards as Claire Underwood.

7 Christina Ricci As Lex Murphy

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

With Mermaids and The Addams Family under her belt, Christina Ricci had already become an up-and-coming star when Steven Spielberg started adapting Jurassic Park in the early ‘90s.

Ricci was considered for the role of John Hammond’s granddaughter Lex Murphy but ultimately lost the part to Ariana Richards. Richards was only asked to scream in her audition and won the role when her scream woke up Spielberg’s wife, who rushed in to see if the kids were okay.

6 Jim Carrey As Dr. Ian Malcolm

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

When casting director Janet Hirshenson first read Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, she had Jeff Goldblum in mind for the role of Dr. Ian Malcolm. But Goldblum wasn’t the only actor considered. Jim Carrey also auditioned. According to Hirshenson, Carrey’s audition was “terrific,” but noted that “pretty quickly, we all loved the idea of Jeff.”

Carrey ended up becoming one of the biggest stars in the world a year later with the triple whammy of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber.

5 Juliette Binoche As Dr. Ellie Sattler

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

The role of Dr. Sattler was offered to Juliette Binoche, but she had to turn it down because she’d already committed to playing the lead role in Three Colors: Blue.

Binoche explained, “I had already said yes to Blue, with [Krzysztof] Kieślowski, and after that, Spielberg asked if would be in his film. So, it’s not that I refused to do Jurassic Park, but I was already on Blue.” Binoche would later appear in a different big-budget Hollywood monster movie: the 2014 remake of Godzilla.

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4 Richard Dreyfuss As Dr. Alan Grant

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

One of the many actors considered for the role of Dr. Alan Grant before Sam Neill was cast was Richard Dreyfuss, who previously starred in three Spielberg movies.

The two most famous roles that Dreyfuss played for Spielberg are, of course, Matt Hooper in Jaws and Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but he also played Pete Sandich in the director’s little-seen romantic dramedy Always.

3 Sean Connery As John Hammond

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

Having worked with Sean Connery on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Steven Spielberg offered the role of John Hammond in Jurassic Park to the James Bond icon. However, Connery declined.

Connery is reported to have turned down a lot of high-profile roles, including Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, Simon Gruber in Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Sybok in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.

2 Sandra Bullock As Dr. Ellie Sattler

9 Actors Considered For Roles In Jurassic Park

Although Laura Dern was Spielberg’s top choice, the producers considered a number of promising young actors for the role of Dr. Sattler. One of the names that came up in casting discussions was Sandra Bullock.

Bullock hadn’t played any major roles at this point and Jurassic Park would’ve been a huge career boost, but her star-making turn in 1994’s Speed was right around the corner.

1 Harrison Ford As Dr. Alan Grant

Before Sam Neill was cast to play Dr. Alan Grant, Steven Spielberg initially offered the role to another actor he knew could play a renowned scientist who wears a fedora and travels to mysterious exotic locations: Harrison Ford.

However, Ford turned down the part. Neill wasn’t cast until filming was just a couple of weeks away, so his preparation for the role was pretty accelerated.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/jurassic-park-famous-movie-stars-almost-cast/

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