STACK #249 July 2025

CINEMA FEATURE

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quickly found it raised the bar, enabling him to quickly cast double Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey and Rupert Friend for the seventh Jurassic adventure. Portraying former special-forces operative and extraction expert Zora Bennett, Johansson’s inclusion ensured that all the cast were closely bonded from the outset of the five-month shoot in Thailand and Malta. “I think it's rare to have someone lead both on and off screen with the effortlessness and flair that Scarlett does,” says Rupert Friend, recalling how she rented out a yacht to whisk the cast away for a fun-filled weekend. “By renting that boat and giving us this experience together, meant that we were all able

For determined Jurassic fan Scarlett Johansson, landing the lead role in Jurassic World: Rebirth was a childhood dream come true. Words Gill Pringle S carlett Johansson had longed to star in a Jurassic film since

to bond and get through what was quite a gruelling shoot, but also, I think that the relationships on screen probably reflect some of that,” he recalls. "When I came into work on the Monday, there was this massive difference with all the cast, where they were totally bonded,” recalls Edwards. “They're all best

childhood. “It's been a dream of mine to be in the Jurassic family since forever,” she admits. “One of my first memories of going to the theatre was going to see Jurassic Park .

“For the last 15 years, I have been following every Jurassic movement, and each time I heard they were making a film, I reached out to say I was available, but nothing worked out.” Leaving nothing to chance this time, she even called Steven Spielberg and requested a meeting after hearing rumblings of Jurassic World: Rebirth . “I asked if he would like to sit down just to meet in general, but, of course, with the hope being that he would mention Jurassic or I could sort of slip it in. “We talked for hours and somewhere in the middle of it I said, 'Steven, I want to be in this film so bad. Even if it’s just to play someone who dies in the first five minutes, I’d do it! It's my childhood dream! Let me do this! I will crush this for you’,” she says. Fast forward a few months later when

Spielberg was meeting with his producers and director Gareth Edwards at Universal Studios. “I'd never actually had this

mates, and all laughing and joking. It was like night and day, from what it was like before that weekend and after that weekend. “I think it was really smart of Scarlett. I don't know if she'd done it before, but it really made everyone become a family,” he adds. But even with the mostly closely bonded group, there's always someone who has to get gobbled up by a dinosaur…

Jurassic World Rebirth Poster

kind of meeting before – basically there was a stack of photographs of all these A-list actors, all these celebrities, laid out and everyone was moving them around and talking about different people,” recalls Edwards, the British director best known for Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story . "There's like a sea of faces on this desk and everyone's saying so many names. We've got to figure this out, like now . “At which point Steven went, ‘Well, if I don't give the role to Scarlett, she's gonna kill me’. And we were like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he goes: ‘Well, she's just been hassling me relentlessly about being in Jurassic’. And as I'm hearing this, I'm like, ‘Wait a minute; Scarlett Johansson wants to be in the film? And he's like, yeah." “Then they said, ‘Oh, we sent Scarlett the script. She's reading it over the weekend, and then suddenly, I heard she loved it. She's in, it's happening. So it all went from there,” Edwards tells STACK . With Johansson on board, Edwards

Jurassic World Rebirth is in cinemas from July 3

David Iacono, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey

• Jurassic World Trilogy JB Exclusive 4K Steelbook is out Jul 2

JULY 2025

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