Have you watched Jurassic Park lately, and you’re wondering what happened to the kid actors? Where are they now, and are they still actors? One of Steven Spielberg’s masterpieces ensured that we never looked at a plastic cup of water the same way again.
Now the original stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum are returning in Jurassic World: Dominion. I think everyone knows that Jeff Goldblum is still pretty active in Hollywood. Some may have already seen Sam Neill in Peaky Blinders. Now let’s look back at the little men of Jurassic Park to see what they did next.
Unfortunately, we’ve since lost the talents of Lord Richard Attenborough (John Hammond) and Bob Peck (Robert Muldoon).
Joseph Mazzello (Tim Murphy)
After Jurassic Park, child actor Joseph Mazzello played Tim in The Lost World again for a while. After a few quiet years, Joseph has built an impressive acting career, growing out of his “child star” status. Let’s rewind a bit. He was born in Rhinebeck, New York, and started acting when he was five years old. His inspiration was his sister, who had starred in some thirty commercials. Since then, he has performed opposite some of Hollywood’s best actors as a bright, expressive actor with complexity, sensitivity, and emotion. He attended film school at USC and earned a degree in film and television production.
Joseph has had impressive supporting roles in The Social Network and the Spielberg-produced TV show The Pacific. Mostly he had some minor roles in different Tv shows and movies. Enough to make a living, I guess.
More recently, you probably know Joseph best for his role as Queen bassist John Deacon in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. He is still active as he’s part of a new movie coming out named “Bob and Amy.”
Ariana Richards (Lex Murphy)
Ariana started acting very early as she had been in the industry since her commercial television debut (as a ballerina) when she was seven. In 1991, Ariana Richards won the Young Actors Award as “Best Young Actress Starring. This was thanks to her role in a TV movie, Switched at Birth (1991). She won the same award in 1992 for her role in CBS’s, Locked Up: A Mother’s Rage (1991).
After taking on the T-Rex with her younger brother as Lex, Ariana kissed, acting goodbye after being a rather prolific child star.
Not every child actor continues in the film world. She went after her dreams and became a successful painter living in Salem, Oregon, and you can view her work on the website Gallery Ariana.
You’d think she was distancing herself from Hollywood, but Ariana still participates in Jurassic Park-related events. For example, she appeared at the premiere of Fallen Kingdom.
Fun fact. When she was in Hawaii, she combined her two worlds, acting, and painting. During the recording breaks, Ariana painted a self-portrait of herself and fellow actor Joseph Mazzello, next to a Brachiosaurus, using watercolors. She handed the work to Spielberg, who had it framed and placed in his home. And shortly after the filming of Jurassic Park (1993), she famously made a watercolor of the chilling “kitchen scene” in which her character sees the silhouette of a live raptor very close while the spoonful of Jello vibrates in her hand.
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