The Day Sam Neill Feared for His Life Making Jurassic Park
Sam Neill relives the moment Hurricane Iniki slammed Jurassic Park, shredding the set and leaving him fearing he wouldn’t make it out alive.
Sam Neill just spent the Super Bowl back in dino-land for an Xfinity spot that imagines a Jurassic Park tour where, for once, everything goes smoothly. Which is cute, because when he thinks about the real shoot, his brain goes straight to the day a hurricane made the movie feel genuinely life-or-death.
The morning everything turned eerie
A week or so into filming in Hawaii, Neill says the day started like any other call time. Then the mood shifted, the air went still, and the tide pulled back. Production shut down on the spot.
"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.'"
Neill and Laura Dern walked down to the beach to take it in. What she asked next has lived rent-free in his head ever since.
"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.'"
Riding out Iniki and picking up the pieces
Everyone decamped to a resort ballroom as Hurricane Iniki tore across the island. The storm moved fast, but when it passed directly over them, it shredded sets and turned the airport into a maze of downed trees. Once crews cleared enough debris for a plane to land, the production hopped back to Los Angeles within two or three days so the damage in Hawaii could be handled.
With the workday obliterated, Neill, Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Steven Spielberg ended up with nothing on the schedule except killing time together. Out of a frightening day came a weirdly great bonding session.
"I've been through a few semi-disasters on films, but that's the closest we actually came to death."
From fake dinos to a very real storm
So yeah, the new ad plays the tour straight and keeps the jeeps on the track. Back in the early 90s, nature had other plans. The dinosaurs were pretend. The hurricane was not. And it left the cast a little closer and the sets in pieces.