When Jurassic Park reached theaters in June 1993, audiences had never seen dinosaurs like these. Steven Spielberg's adventure won three Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects. It became the first chapter of a franchise that has run for more than three decades, and in 2013 a 20th-anniversary re-release pushed its ticket sales past $1 billion. The cast included screen veterans, rising stars and two young newcomers. Several returned to the franchise years later. Here is where the people who first brought Isla Nublar to life went next.
Joseph Mazzello
Joseph Mazzello was nine years old when he played Tim Murphy, John Hammond's grandson, in Jurassic Park. Born in Rhinebeck, New York, in 1983, he kept acting as he grew up. In 2001 he entered the USC School of Cinematic Arts, helped by a recommendation letter from Steven Spielberg. In 2010 he had two major adult roles: Marine Eugene Sledge in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz in The Social Network. In 2018 he played Queen bassist John Deacon in Bohemian Rhapsody. He has also worked behind the camera. He directed the short film Matters of Life and Death in 2007 and made his feature directing debut with Undrafted in 2016.
Jeff Goldblum
Jeff Goldblum played chaos theorist Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park. He led the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997 and returned in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion. He was born in West Homestead, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, in 1952. His other well-known films include The Fly and Independence Day, and he received an Academy Award nomination for the live-action short film Little Surprises. He is also a jazz pianist: since 2018 he has released several albums with his band, the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra. He hosted The World According to Jeff Goldblum on Disney+, played the Wizard in Wicked and Wicked: For Good, and played Zeus in the series Kaos. He married Canadian Olympic gymnast Emilie Livingston in 2014, and they have two sons.
Laura Dern
Laura Dern played paleobotanist Ellie Sattler in Jurassic Park and returned to the role in Jurassic Park III in 2001 and in Jurassic World Dominion in 2022. She was born in Los Angeles in 1967 to actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. In 2010 she and her parents became the first family to receive stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame together. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for playing divorce lawyer Nora Fanshaw in Marriage Story. She also won a Primetime Emmy for HBO's Big Little Lies and has won five Golden Globe Awards. More recently she has starred in and executive produced Apple TV+'s Palm Royale and appeared in the 2025 film Jay Kelly.
Sam Neill
Sam Neill became an international star as paleontologist Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. He returned to the role in Jurassic Park III and in Jurassic World Dominion. Born in Omagh, Northern Ireland, in 1947, he moved with his family to New Zealand in 1954. His wide-ranging career included The Piano, The Hunt for Red October, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Peaky Blinders, in which he played Chief Inspector Chester Campbell. He also owned Two Paddocks, a winery in New Zealand's Central Otago region, and published the memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? in 2023. He was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2022. His family said he remained cancer-free when he died suddenly in Sydney on July 13, 2026, at age 78. Leaders in both Australia and New Zealand paid tribute to him.
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson played Ray Arnold, the park's chief engineer, in Jurassic Park. He was born in Washington, D.C., in 1948. A year after Jurassic Park, his role as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction earned him an Academy Award nomination and a BAFTA Award. Starting with Iron Man in 2008, he has played Nick Fury in 11 Marvel Cinematic Universe films and starred in the Disney+ series Secret Invasion. The 2009 Guinness World Records listed him as the highest-grossing actor. He received an honorary Academy Award at the 2022 Governors Awards. He joined Tulsa King in its third season, and in 2025 a spin-off starring him was announced. He has been married to actress and director LaTanya Richardson since 1980. They have a daughter, Zoe.
BD Wong
BD Wong played geneticist Henry Wu in Jurassic Park. Decades later he returned to the role in Jurassic World, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion. Born in San Francisco in 1960, he had already won a Tony Award for playing Song Liling in M. Butterfly on Broadway in 1988. Television viewers know him as FBI psychiatrist Dr. George Huang on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He was a main cast member for many seasons and returned to the show in 2025. He received a Primetime Emmy nomination for playing Whiterose in Mr. Robot and played Professor Hugo Strange in Gotham. He also voiced Captain Li Shang in Disney's animated Mulan in 1998.
Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough played John Hammond, the founder of the dinosaur park, in Jurassic Park. It was his first acting role since 1979; he had spent the years in between mainly directing. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for Gandhi. Born in Cambridge, England, in 1923, he was the older brother of naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. In July 1993, the year Jurassic Park opened, he was made a life peer as Baron Attenborough. He played Kris Kringle in the 1994 remake of Miracle on 34th Street and returned as John Hammond in The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. He died in August 2014, a few days before his 91st birthday.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(film)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Mazzello
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Mazzello_2010_(cropped).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Mazzello_(54856935347).jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Goldblum
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeff_Goldblum.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeff_Goldblum_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Dern
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laura_Dern_Deauville_2017_(cropped).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laura_Dern_Jay_Kelly-12_(cropped).jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Neill
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/13/jurassic-park-actor-sam-neill-dies-aged-78
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Neill_2010.jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sam_Neill_2022_(cropped).jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_L._Jackson
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_L_Jackson_at_San_Diego_ComicCon_2008_(cropped).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_L._Jackson_attending_the_World_premier_of_%22Argylle%22_in_London_,_January_2024_(cropped).jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BD_Wong
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Wong_(30703712021).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BD_Wong_Tribeca_2026_1.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Attenborough
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regisseur_Richard_Attenborough,_Bestanddeelnr_928-0661_(cropped).jpg
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Attenborough_(3x4_cropped).jpg
