We were present at the JURASSIC WORLD Los Angeles press conference. Here are some of the most interesting things that the protagonists of the adventure film said, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas.

Universal Pictures’ JURASSIC WORLD is now playing in IMAX, 3D and regular theaters nationwide.

Chris Pratt (Owen Grady)

JURASSIC WORLD

On how his experience with animals in the wild informed his performance

I love this story because it’s true and it’s a story that will tell for everyone and I am glad to tell it to you guys because if I wasn’t at a press conference I would just be telling it to my buddies, and this is way better. I was on an Elk hunt and about 8-9 years ago and was walking around camp and they had Grouse, they’re dumb little birds and were going to shoot them with a single shot 22, tiny little gun and it was basically a BB gun. I am wearing slippers and pajamas and had my single baby shot baby gun and I drop my binoculars and not standing 10 feet from me is a big Moose, they are incredibly dangerous and they kill more people in North America than Bears and Wolves combined. I thought to myself “Oh, I’m going to die now!” I tried not to look at it in the eyes. It was a stand off between this giant beast and me. I took another step back and it took another step towards me. I could still recognize the smell of this creature vividly, there was steam coming out of its nose since it was so cold. I finally took one more step back and it took three more steps closer and I nearly fainted and it just walked off into the wild, as if it didn’t care who I was. When I was doing that scene with the raptors I thought there was something really scary in front me, something that if you take a few steps back, it’ll come at you.

On crafting his character

When Collin pitched me the idea and I was all over the place in terms of how I would bring it. I thought this character was going to be like The Crocodile Hunter. Should I do an Australian accent? He said “ I don’t know, maybe not […] I just want this to be real no matter who the character is. We need to create an organic relationship between man and beast and it is going to strike some emotional core, and hopefully people will give a shit about this relationship between a guy and his dinosaurs.” It is a tough thing to accomplish, especially when the dinosaurs are CGI characters. Moving forward with the idea I did some research and got to hang out with some pretty awesome animal-trainers, there was one guy named Randy Miller, and has a company named Predator in Action, which is a company that trains these vicious cats, bears and tigers and other animals to do simulated animal attacks in movies. His animals and his tigers were in Gladiator and had a bear, which was featured in Semi Pro; he’s got so many amazing animals. I went to his ranch, hung out with him and spent the day seeing him interact with his animals and that was a big part of creating that clicker and the posture that I had adopted, all of that was part of the research.

On the differences between Owen Grady and his previous characters

I approached it as being different from Peter Quill, a huge part of that was just our director Colin Trevorrow’s vision. For the most part it was deadly serious and it was a bit of a darkness like this is a guy who’s been through something. We decided that in this back story he is a guy who trained dolphins for the NAVY, saw what type of treatment those animals receive and it is not always great for the animals. We decided that this isn’t his first set of raptors and some of these animals died on his watch. It’s pretty serious and there is not a lot of room for goofing around when you play a guy who’s been through combat, there is a bit of a darkness if you’re a combat veteran who’s chosen to move away from the world and live in the dark side of an island. All of that was fun and interesting work on a character and made me want to be someone who is different. I loved Peter Quill and Andy Dwyer and look forward to playing Peter Quill and it’s super fun but this was just something a little different for me.

On which dinosaur was the biggest asshole and surviving wearing high heels like like Bryce Dallas Howard’s character.

I guess Indominus Rex was the biggest asshole, a pretty big asshole, just mean. There’s not a likely chance for me to outrun it on high heels although I did run in heels yesterday for the first time on the James Corden show and kind of liked the way it felt to walk in them, I just did it and I surprised myself, it was kind of like tippy toe running. Would not be able to outrun Indominus Rex but with enough practice I might be able to make it to forty or fifty feet before I was killed.

Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire Dearing)

JURASSIC WORLD

On Director Colin

His first film was “Safety Not Guaranteed” which was a film that was made for $700,000, that price is enormous but not for movies. I think something he brought to the movie is the mindset that is required to making a film on a micro budget, which is a lot of passion, a lot of efficiency and the ability to accomplish a lot with a small intimate crew. This set was better than an independent film, it felt far more intimate than you would assume of a monster-sized studio franchise film and that was all Colin, he’s a really smart guy and will have a sensational career. But I was always asking him “Hey man, what are you going to do next”? In response he said he was focusing all of his energy on this “There will come a time and place where I’ll start looking at future projects but right now it’s this.” What I got from that was just his integrity as an artist and how important this movie is to him, that it wasn’t just kind of a way to leverage his career. This was a much as a passion project as “Safety Not Guaranteed” and as anything that he will do in the future.

On her memories of watching “Jurassic Park” for the first time

I really do I found that this is something not so uncommon for those of us who were kind of teenagers or at the age where we could go to a movie theater. That movie was cinema history, just how groundbreaking it really was, technology wise and the nature of the story. It was Michael Crichton’s story and then ofcourse masterful filmmaker Steven Spielberg; it was sort of this perfect moment and a perfect movie. All of my friends were going to see the movie opening night and I was not allowed to because I was twelve and it was PG13, my parents are real literal, they saw the movie opening night. My dad said that this was cinema history and I got to see it in the opening weekend with my parents. At the time I was very interested in filmmaking and whenever my dad would do something with filmmaking that I couldn’t quite understand he would explain it to me and so when I saw that film it was like an aspiring painter seeing the Sistine Chapel for the first time.

On her character’s arc

What I love so much about this character is when you see and meet her she is running the park, she is responsible for 20 thousand visitors every single day, she’s responsible for the assets which are the dinosaurs she’s responsible for above all the bottom line and yes she is a high level executive and kind of projects this sense of power and authority but in truth she is super disconnected from herself and in her quest for profit she’s disconnected from her own humanity and thought it was so interesting to meet a character like that and then to have that person that makes the mistakes that causes the chaos, evolve into an individual who redeems herself and who is ultimately heroic. When you’re doing a film and the majority of the scenes are action sequences, there’s not a lot of time for character development or complexities like that, especially if you’re playing a character that is initially unlikeable, time to win the audience back. I really respected Colin for writing a story that hit all of those beats, you go into this thinking it is a cliché and then you see that it’s not that at all.

On running around in high heels during many scenes

I liked that in terms of the heels there were definitely several fittings, were during the fitting I would say “couldn’t I just wear boots or something”? The costume designer said “Well yeah, but you’re going to look so protected.” There is something honest about a character that starts off so pristine in heels and fits in a corporate environment and she ultimately ends up in the jungle. She thinks she can run in heels better than in. When she goes into the jungle for the first time there is actually an acknowledgement of the ridiculous heels, that you will never survive in those heels. But something that seems to be a handicap, ultimately is her greatest strength and a source of her power. She is wicked fast at the end. I kind of couldn’t deny that and really had to practice running in heels because it was not a skill I was born with.

Transcription credit: NY-based videographer & editor Carlos Otero.

Twenty-two years after the events of Jurassic Park (1993), Isla Nublar now features a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Jurassic World, as originally envisioned by John Hammond. After 10 years of operation and visitor rates declining, in order to fulfill a corporate mandate, a new attraction is created to re-spark visitor’s interest, which backfires horribly.