Life Threatening Condition Almost Shut Down Jurassic Park- Sam Neill Reveals Major Obstacle While Shooting His Iconic Movie
The Sam Neil starrer Jurrasic Park was a blockbuster sci-fi action film directed by Steven Spielberg. Made on a budget of only $63 million, the movie went on to make over $1 billion at the box office. It surpassed Spielberg’s own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Titanic in 1997. The film won over 20 awards, including three Academy Awards, to testify to its brilliance.
The film recently celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. Although people still enjoy the movie even after all these years, they would be surprised to know that the cast of Jurassic Park almost died while filming the movie due to a major hurricane.
Sam Neil came almost close to dying while filming for Jurassic Park
One of the greatest highlights of Sam Neil’s career is Jurassic Park. However, in a recent interview with CNN, he opened up about how building this legacy of a movie was not easy. In fact, he thanks his stars that he did not die while filming.
The set was hit by a very powerful hurricane that ravaged all the elaborate sets and could have claimed the lives of the cast and crew. Citing Murphy’s Law, the actor opens up and says:
“What can go wrong does go wrong in the film. And the dinosaurs are agents of chaos and everything gets destroyed. However, while we were shooting this film, mother nature became an agent of chaos. We had Hurricane Iniki come through and trash the island and kill some people.”
This was not the only time the actor had opened up about this traumatic event. In his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This? he goes into harrowing details of what he and the cast had gone through:
“We almost died in the first few weeks where we were filming on Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago. One morning we were told to stay back at the hotel and expect a hurricane later in the day. I was down on the beach with Laura Dern, who asked me: ‘Sam, do you think we might die today?’ As these massive black clouds approached over the Pacific I found I had to tell her that in all honesty the answer was yes, I thought we might. It turned out we came very close.”
(via. People)
Hurricane Inki was one of the most brutal natural disasters to hit the Hawaiian Islands. It was ranked Category Four on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, where Category One represents the least dangerous and Category Five represents the most. The hurricane was one of the deadliest, going on to kill six people and damaging and destroying over 14000 homes. According to Sam Neil, it caused “more than $3 billion worth of damage.”
Sam Neil’s journey with cancer and how he is not “remotely afraid” of it
Back in March 2023, Sam Neil revealed to the public that he was suffering from blood cancer. Although he has been in remission for quite some time, he came very close to facing death, and having thoughts about one’s own mortality in such situations is very normal. In an interview with Australian Story, he said he is not really interested in thinking about his mortality because it is out of his control and he does not feel the need to “get into it.” In fact, after the initial shock of hearing his diagnosis, he was more annoyed than afraid that he would not be able to work as much.
Sam Neil has been in remission thanks to an anti-cancer drug that is being given to him every two weeks. While he is grateful, he is also realistic since the doctors told him that the drugs might stop working one day, and he has made peace with that. He has firmly planted his vision in his work life and he intends to do that for as long as he is physically capable. Now, he is taking life one day at a time, and even amidst all the illness, he “could not feel more alive or pleased to be breathing and looking at a blue sky.”
Jurassic Park is available to watch on Prime Videos.
