Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill Says He Didn’t Fully Embody Alan Grant Until Third Film

Throughout his career, Sam Neill delivered audiences many compelling performances, though it’s hard to rival how beloved his portrayal of Dr. Alan Grant is in the Jurassic Park films, with Neill himself recently detailing that he didn’t feel as though he has fully tapped into the character until his involvement in Jurassic Park III. This will likely come as a surprise to audiences, given how much fans love his performance in the debut film in the series and the overall lackluster reception to the third installment, but these comments bode well for how much more comfortable the actor will be as he reprises Grant for Jurassic World: Dominion.

“For me, by the time I got to #3, probably a bit late in the day, I’d sort of worked out how to play that character, which I hadn’t really quite gotten around to in the first one,” Neill admitted to Collider. “I was still trying to work out, how do you play that guy in the hat? Something that comes completely naturally to someone like Harrison Ford. Not naturally to me. And something that Chris Pratt, fantastic guy, has given a lot of thought to and really worked out how to do it. And you have to think how to do that. It’s a special skill. You’re not just playing a character. You need a whole skillset. You need a whole armory to play an action hero and I wish I had known what those skills were when we did the first one, but there we are!”

Regardless of how much fans love his performance in the 1993 film, it’s understandable to see where he’s coming from, in that his character had to evolve from someone who spent their days digging up dinosaur bones to become the protector of John Hammond’s grandkids as he had to use his intellect and physical abilities to ward off threats.

Neill himself also shared his support of Jurassic Park III, which stagnated the franchise for a number of years, including his appreciation of a moment in which a raptor talks to him in a dream.

“I thought, ‘That’s pretty cool!’” the actor joked about the speaking raptor. “I was just talking to someone earlier in the day who said, ‘I really like Jurassic Park III and it gets an unfair [treatment].’ He was from Rotten Tomatoes, I think it was him. And I said, ‘Thank you very much!’ I agree that the last 10 minutes are way too easy and way too hurried, but I think up to that point, it’s pretty damn good.”

Fans can see Dr. Alan Grant’s return in Jurassic World: Dominion, which is slated to hit theaters on June 10, 2022.

Are you looking forward to seeing Neill in the franchise again? Let us know in the comments below!