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  • 2 weeks ago
The cast of "Jurassic World Rebirth" (Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda and Luna Blaise) as well as director Gareth Edwards sat down with CinemaBlend's Hannah Saulic to talk about the new blockbuster! Watch us chat about the possibility of Scarlett Johansson directing a "Jurassic" movie, the legacy of the "Jurassic Park" franchise, attempt to get the tea about whether or not Ariana Grande's dog is playing "Toto" in "Wicked: For Good" and much, much more.
Transcript
00:00That is so crazy that you would say that!
00:09Scarlett, I love how vocal you've been, that you've been a fan of the franchise for so long.
00:14I'm curious, what do you think are the most important elements of, like, a good Jurassic film?
00:19Great actors. Period.
00:24No, the script has to be solid. That's the first most important thing.
00:28And then you need a great cast, great cinematographer, fantastic composer, good editor, visionary director.
00:37You need the thrills, you need the corny jokes, you need the, like, scary...
00:42Gooney sense of adventure, yeah.
00:43Yeah, sense of adventure and a bunch of people have to get eaten, too.
00:49Yeah, there's a lot that goes into the blender.
00:51I'm obsessed with the fact that before even getting the call to do this movie, you just happened to write
00:56a four-page analysis.
00:57Yeah, yeah.
00:58On why Jurassic Park is good.
01:00So I'm curious, in your opinion, what are, like, the top three essential things needed for, like, a good Jurassic
01:05movie?
01:06And please don't say dinosaurs.
01:10Wow.
01:11You know what's tricky about that, and this is the whole point, really, is that it's hard to say it
01:16in words.
01:17When I wrote that document, what I'm doing is I'm sort of trying to take the essence of the story
01:23and tell it like it was, like, a thousand years ago.
01:26So it's more like a campfire story.
01:27So it's like you're just trying to make it, like, timeless.
01:30So that's a little exercise to do with films I love.
01:32And I did it the day before I got the call about the job.
01:39I had no idea.
01:40I just did it because I love Jurassic Park.
01:42And what happened is my girlfriend, because she knew I'd spent, like, five hours doing this in this room,
01:47she saw this news article the next day about Universal looking for a director for Jurassic.
01:51And she just, I was on the phone to a friend, and my phone went, you know, and I kind
01:56of looked,
01:57and it was just this link to the article, and I copied and pasted it, and I sent it to
02:01my agent,
02:01and just wrote, is this stupid?
02:03Question mark.
02:04It's hit send, carried on the phone call, and then put the phone down 45 minutes later,
02:09and looked, and there was four missed calls.
02:10And I was like, oh, no, the Jurassic article.
02:13Oh, God.
02:14And I called my agent going, hello?
02:16Like, what have I done?
02:18And he was like, you will never believe this.
02:20But he goes, but Universal called, and Frank Marshall, and they were asking if you'd be interested,
02:25and I told them you want to do your own thing.
02:27And he says, and now as I'm saying that, your text came through, and I burst out laughing.
02:31And so anyway, they're sending you the script, you know, read it over the weekend, see what you think.
02:35And I kind of didn't want to like it.
02:37I kind of, I thought, oh, the easiest version of life is if it's just bad, and I don't do
02:42it, you know.
02:43And I got to the end, and I'm like, oh, damn it.
02:45It's like, it was a really fun playground that I felt like, oh, I just, this is what I've always
02:50wanted to do, this kind of thing.
02:51So, yes, I had to do it.
02:53I had to dive in.
02:57Would you ever consider directing a Jurassic film?
03:00I know.
03:00That is crazy that you would say that.
03:052028, baby.
03:06The ink isn't even dry on the track.
03:09You heard it here first.
03:10No, actually, because Mahershala is actually volunteered to Jurassic Park.
03:14He's going to do a one-man show at Jurassic Park.
03:16We were just talking about it for seven months on Broadway.
03:19I know, it's going to be great for your friends.
03:21I'm doing the musical, actually.
03:22Yeah.
03:23We're going to play the tennis balls.
03:24Jonathan, I want to talk about the Altoids.
03:29Such a funny moment, and I love that it's wintergreen Altoids and not the original flavor.
03:33What does that say?
03:34Everything that kind of moves is just slightly off-scented.
03:36Yeah, I was going to say, what does that say about his character?
03:38I think it tells you so much about his psyche, in a way.
03:40It does, yeah.
03:41I think he's got a ferociously fast brain, I think, can go against him at points.
03:48And yeah, his need for physical, what's the word?
03:53I actually have the same problem.
03:55Like a disruptor?
03:55I could do with the men right now.
03:57A cognitive, yeah, a crutch.
03:59Yeah, like a reset.
04:00A crutch, yeah.
04:01But no, the wintergreen was a choice.
04:03An oral fidget.
04:03An oral fidget.
04:04You heard it here first.
04:05How many containers does he have on him at all times?
04:08I feel like he's like, handful.
04:10No, I think possibly has one bottomless pit.
04:13No, two.
04:14I think he has two.
04:15So it's all in the background.
04:16I could just pull it on.
04:17That's true, yeah.
04:18He's like, do you know who's carrying a couple of these?
04:20Why didn't Dolores get any Altoids?
04:22That's true.
04:23I don't know if she's in the mince, though.
04:25They make dinosaurs sick.
04:26Yeah, she didn't know that.
04:27Yeah, they only do that.
04:28That's true, yeah.
04:29You didn't know they make them sick.
04:30Okay.
04:31Was Dolores practical on set?
04:34It was.
04:34It was a full robotic animatronic.
04:37And it was so real.
04:39It would blink.
04:40It would move.
04:41It would make noise.
04:43So I think that was one of the best things because you were able to actually look at it.
04:48And then when it was in my backpack, I had an eyeline for it.
04:52And most of the scenes, she was actually there.
04:55Some of it, it was raining and she couldn't be in the rain.
04:59So they had just a blue tennis ball.
05:02But that was amazing.
05:05Is she just as cute, like the puppet version?
05:07Oh, yeah.
05:08Oh, yeah.
05:08Cuter?
05:09No, they're the same amount of cute.
05:11But you know, she's so cute.
05:12You know, the big screen is always better.
05:14I'm taking her home with me.
05:16That may or may not be a terrible idea.
05:18What kind of pet do we think she's going to be like?
05:20Like, what's happening to her in an ideal world?
05:24Well, you said she doesn't get any bigger, right?
05:26Um, she doesn't get any bigger.
05:27Yeah, so that's her full size.
05:30It is still baby Dolores, though.
05:32Um, and hopefully she could stay with me the whole entire life.
05:40She's scary.
05:41She's scared, though.
05:44Cut it!
05:45Run!
05:50How involved were you with the actual, like, dinosaur design?
05:54And did you know immediately, like, I want a xenomorph?
05:58No, it's really hard to do.
05:59Like, the xenomorph from Alien is probably, I think there'd be a very good argument that it's the best monster
06:05ever designed.
06:06And so you compete against that the whole time.
06:10And so then, um, basically we threw that in the pot with, like, the Rancor monster and the Elephant Man.
06:18Um, and a more obscure reference probably is the Chris Cunningham video, uh, Robert Johnny, uh, went in.
06:26And, and a T-Rex, obviously.
06:28And then just stirred the pot.
06:30And you just play with elements.
06:32And, and, and there's one particular angle that one of the artists drew.
06:36And it was like, that's it.
06:37Stop.
06:37We've got it.
06:37That's it.
06:38That's, that's the, that's the creature.
06:40And, and, and it was like really super fast.
06:43Like, sometimes you just, it just clicks and you get there quickly.
06:47And there was another creature in the movie.
06:48Took another nine months and about another thousand designs before we nailed it.
06:52It was like crazy.
06:53What creature?
06:53Called the Mutadon.
06:54It was the ones.
06:55Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:58Stay there or do you know, it's right above you, okay?
07:01I think you guys really are the heart of the movie.
07:04Did you see the New York premiere screening?
07:06Were you in the audience?
07:07Yeah.
07:07Everybody was reacting to you guys, just like so in love with all of your scenes.
07:11It was so fun to watch, especially some of your replying.
07:14I know, dude, yeah.
07:16Just so, like the comedic timing is so great.
07:19I'm curious, was any of that improv?
07:21Yeah, a good amount of it was improv.
07:23And I felt so comfortable because Gareth was like, hey man, try it.
07:27If it doesn't work, we'll cut it and we won't use it.
07:28And if you're doing too much, I'll reel it back in.
07:30So I felt so comfortable.
07:31And yeah, I love improv.
07:33I love being an idiot in front of people and making people laugh.
07:36So that's what I did.
07:37Very good at it.
07:40Was there anything that you tried that you were like, oh, I wish that would have gotten in?
07:44Honestly, I think they kept in a majority of the stuff.
07:47I had one line where I was like, it wasn't even funny.
07:51Remember we were rafting through in Thailand and I tried a line where I was like, you think
07:55they have air conditioning when we get there?
07:57And it didn't really land very well.
07:58So it's probably for the best.
08:00I love that.
08:01I also loved the raft scene.
08:02What was it like filming that sequence?
08:05I think there's a lot of memories from the raft scene because that was a very important
08:10scene that we wanted to get down packed.
08:11And sharing it with all of these guys was super cool.
08:17And when Luna, you were having to swim to go get the raft.
08:22It was broken up into a lot of different days, a lot of different locations, a lot of months
08:28spread across that scene.
08:31For my personal experience, I got to really just work it out with Gareth, work it out with
08:37David Koepp, John Matheson.
08:39It's a very iconic scene.
08:40It's also, for my part of it, it's the one scene in the movie that doesn't have a score,
08:43which is really, really cool, which makes it just a lot more real.
08:48It makes everything a lot more just like in your face and you can hear everything.
08:53You can hear breathing.
08:54You can hear the water.
08:54You can hear the steps.
08:55You can hear the wind move the grass.
08:58Like there's so much more to that.
09:00So being able to like really like sit down with them and talk about it just made it feel a
09:04lot more like iconic in a way, because it's just like something that people are going to
09:08remember for a really long time.
09:10So taking that like intricate, like taking those intricate moments and beats to really
09:15just like figure out how we're going to make this exactly what the audience is going to want
09:19to see.
09:20It just was like, it was so special.
09:22So cool to be able to like have that experience.
09:29Mahershala will obviously hold this for spoilers, but what do you think happened between
09:33Duncan and D-Rex?
09:35We don't see that moment on camera.
09:37Just give him a little boop on the nose.
09:39Is that how he got him to go away?
09:40What's that?
09:41I think he, I think he went, I think he distracted.
09:45The flare went out and I think he went underwater and kind of like, you know, swam away very quickly.
09:50You guys didn't talk about it?
09:51No.
09:52I thought you had a conversation.
09:53I thought it was rock paper.
09:54Originally, I thought he died, but I'm joking.
09:56But I think he, I think he goes underwater and kind of swims through.
09:59Actually, maybe it's not the real Kinkade.
10:01If the Kinkade dies, it's a doppelganger Kinkade.
10:04Yeah, there you go.
10:05It's a Kinkade.
10:06Already in the jungle.
10:07It's a Twin Peaks level evil version.
10:11And it's called Kunkun Dinted.
10:24I don't know what this says about my algorithm, but Jonathan, I keep seeing posts from questionable
10:29sources, that Ariana Grande's dog, Toulouse, is playing Toto.
10:34Oh, wow.
10:35Well, I couldn't possibly say.
10:36Can you confirm or deny?
10:38I wouldn't be able to say anything about that film other than get ready because it's going
10:41to be extraordinary.
10:42Can you say anything about Toulouse?
10:43I hear that Toulouse is a very good actor.
10:45Really?
10:45I don't know how I'd know that.
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