'Jurassic World Rebirth' Interviews with Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Mahershala Ali & More!

That is so crazy that you would say that! Scarlett, I love how vocal you've been, that you've been a fan of the franchise for so long. I'm curious, what do you think are the most important elements of like a good Jurassic film? Great actors. Period. No, the script has to be solid. That's the first and most important thing. And then you need a great cast, great cinematographer, fantastic composer, good editor, visionary director. You need the thrills, you need the corny jokes, you need the like scary. Goonie sense of adventure, yeah. Yeah, sense of adventure and a bunch of people gonna have to get eaten too. Yeah, there's a lot that goes into the blender. I'm obsessed with the fact that before even getting the call to do this movie, you just happened to write a four-page analysis on why Jurassic Park is good. So I'm curious, in your opinion, what are like the top three essential things needed for like a good Jurassic film? And please don't say dinosaurs. Wow, you know what's tricky about that, and this is the whole point really, is that it's hard to say it in words. When I wrote that document, what I'm doing is, I'm sort of trying to take the essence of the story and tell it like it was like a thousand years ago. So it's more like a campfire story. So it's like you're just trying to make it like timeless. So that's a little exercise to do with films I love. And I did it the day before I got the call about the job. I had no idea. I just did it because I love Jurassic Park. And what happened is my girlfriend, because she knew I'd spent like five hours doing this in this room, she saw this news article the next day about Universal looking for a director for Jurassic. And she just, I was on the phone to a friend and my phone went, you know, and I kind of looked and it was just this link to the article. And I copied and pasted it and I sent it to my agent and just wrote, is this stupid? Question marks, hit send, carried on the phone call and then put the phone down 45 minutes later and looked and there was four missed calls. And I was like, oh no, the Jurassic article. Oh God, Mark J. And I called my agent going, hello? Like, what have I done? And he was like, you will never believe this. But he goes, but Universal called and Frank Marshall and they were asking if you'd be interested. And I told them you want to do your own thing. And he says, and I was saying that your text came through and I burst out laughing. And so anyway, they're sending you the script, you know, read it over the weekend, see what you think. And I kind of didn't want to like it. I kind of, I thought, oh, the easiest version of life is if it's just bad and I don't do it, you know. And I got to the end and I'm like, oh, damn it. It's like, it was really fun playground that I felt like, oh, I just, this is what I've always wanted to do, this kind of thing. So yes, I had to do it, I had to dive in. Would you ever consider directing a Jurassic film? I know that's crazy. That you would say that. 2028, baby. The ink isn't even dry on the track. You heard it here first. No, actually, Mahershala is actually a volunteer. He's going to do a one-man show at Jurassic Park. What are you just talking about? For seven months on Broadway. I know, it's going to be great for your film. I'm doing the musical, actually. Yeah. We're going to play the tennis balls. Jonathan, I want to talk about the Altoids. Such a funny moment. And I love that it's wintergreen Altoids and not the original flavor. What does that say? Everything about the Altoids is just slightly off. Yeah, I was going to say, what does that say about his character? I think it tells you so much about his psyche, in a way. It does, yeah. I think he's got a ferociously fast brain, I think can go against him at points. And yeah, his need for physical, what's the word? I actually have the same problem. Like a distraction? I could give it a minute right now. A cognitive, yeah, a grudge, yeah. But no, the wintergreen is the choice. A fidget, an oral fidget. An oral fidget. You heard it here first. How many containers does he have on him at all times? I feel like he's like, handful. Yes, no, I think, possibly has one at the bottom of his pit. No, two, I think he has two. One in the bag. Zora's carrying a few packages for him. That's true, yeah, she's cognitive. He's like, do you know who's carrying a couple of these? Why didn't Dolores get any outfits? That's true. I don't know if she's into mints though, is she? They make dinosaurs. She likes berries. She eats mints. Yeah, they only do that. Oh, that's true, yeah. You didn't know they make them? Was Dolores practical on set? It was, it was a full robotic animatronic. And it was so real, it would blink, it would move, it would make noise. So I think that was one of the best things because you were able to actually look at it. And then when it was in my backpack, I had an eyeline for it. And most of the scenes, she was actually there. Some of it, it was raining and she couldn't see the rain. So they had just like a blue tennis ball, but that was amazing. Is she just as cute, like the puppet version? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Is that cuter? No, they're like the same amount of cute, but you know, she's so cute. You know, the big screen is always better. I'm taking her home with me. That may or may not be a terrible idea. What kind of pet do we think she's going to be like? Like what's happening to her in an ideal world? You said she doesn't get any bigger, right? She doesn't get any bigger. Yeah, so that's her full size. It is still baby Dolores though. And hopefully she could stay with me the whole entire life. She's scared. She's scared of me. How involved were you with the actual dinosaur design? And did you know immediately, like, I want a Xenomorph? No, it's really hard to do. Like the Xenomorph from Alien is probably, I think there'd be a very good argument that it's the best monster ever designed. And so you compete against that the whole time. And so then basically threw that in the pot with like the Rancor monster and the Elephant Man and a more obscure reference probably is the Chris Cunningham video, Rubber Johnny went in and a T-Rex obviously. And then just stirred the pot and you just play with elements. And there's one particular angle that one of the artists drew and it was like, that's it, stop, we've got it. That's it. That's the creature. And it was like really super fast. Like sometimes it just clicks and you get there quickly. And there was another creature in the movie, took another nine months and about another thousand designs before we nailed it. It was like crazy. What creature? Called the Mutodon. It was the one that's- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You stay there, it's right above you, okay? I think you guys really are the heart of the movie. Did you see the New York premiere screening? Were you in the audience? Everybody was reacting to you guys, just like so in love with all of your scenes. It was so fun to watch, especially so much you were playing. I know, dude, yeah. It was just so, like the comedic timing is so great. I'm curious, was any of that improv? Yeah, a good amount of it was improv and I felt so comfortable because Gareth was like, hey man, try it. If it doesn't work, we'll cut it and we won't use it. And if you're doing too much, I'll relook back in. So I felt so comfortable. And yeah, I love improv. I love being an idiot in front of people and making people laugh. So that's what I did. Very good at it. Yeah. Thank you. Was there anything that you tried that you were like, oh, I wish that would have gotten in? Honestly, I think they kept in a majority of the stuff, which I was so, I had one line where I was like, it wasn't even funny. We were like, remember we were rafting through in Thailand and I tried a line where I was like, you think they have air conditioning when we get there? And it didn't really land very well. So probably for the best. I love that. I also loved the raft scene. What was it like filming that sequence? I think there's a lot of memories from the raft scene because that was a very important scene that we wanted to get down pat and sharing it with all of these guys was super cool. And you know, when Luna, you were having to swim to go get the raft. It was broken up into a lot of different days, a lot of different locations, a lot of months spread across that scene. For my personal experience, I got to really just work it out with Gareth, work it out with David Koepp, John Matheson. It's a very iconic scene. It's also, for my part of it, it's the one scene in the movie that doesn't have a score, which is really, really cool, which makes it just a lot more real. It makes everything a lot more just like in your face and you can hear everything. You can hear breathing. You can hear the water. You can hear the steps. You can hear the wind move the grass. There's so much more to that. So being able to really sit down with them and talk about it just made it feel a lot more iconic in a way because it's just something that people are gonna remember for a really long time. So taking those intricate moments and beats to really just figure out how we're gonna make this exactly what the audience is gonna wanna see, it just was so special, so cool to be able to have that experience. Mahershala will obviously hold this for spoilers, but what do you think happened between Duncan and D-Rex? We don't see that moment on camera. Just give him a little boop on the nose. Is that how he got him to go away? What's the? I think he went, I think he distracted. The flare went out and I think he went underwater and kind of like, you know, swam away. You guys didn't talk about it? No. I thought you had a conversation. I thought it was real. Originally, I thought he died, but I'm joking. But I think he goes underwater. Actually, maybe it's not the real Kincaid. If the Kincaid dies, it's a doppelganger Kincaid. There you go. Already in the jungle. It's a Twin Peaks level evil version. And it's called KonKunDinPeg. I don't know what this says about my algorithm, but Jonathan, I keep seeing posts from questionable sources. All right. That Ariana Grande's dog, Toulouse, is playing Toto. Oh, wow. Well, I couldn't possibly say. Can you confirm or deny? I wouldn't be able to say anything about that film other than get ready because it's going to be extraordinary. Can you say anything about Toulouse? I hear that Toulouse is a very good actor. Really? I don't know how I'd know that.