Sam Neill has explained why he’ still getting criticised by a lot of Jurassic Park fans, 29 years after it was released.
The actor played paleontologist Alan Grant in the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, and will return in the forthcoming sequel Jurassic World: Dominion.
However, during the promotional trailer for the new film, the New Zealand-born actor told Vanity Fair that his accent in the film continues to anger fans of the original.
Neill explained that he had attempted to perfect the use of an American accent for the role until Spielberg told him to use his own.
“He came up to me halfway through the day and he said, ‘Hey, Sam, you know the accent we were talking about?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been working on it for four weeks...’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, just use your own voice’.”
Neill continued: ‘I said, ‘That’s great, Steven, thank you so much.’ And then four days later, he came up to me and said, ‘You know that voice you’re using now?’ I said, ‘Yeah, my voice?’ He said, ‘Somewhere in between.’”
The actor described the situation as “an actor’s nightmare”, telling co-stars Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum: “So that’s why I get a lot of flak to this day: ‘Sam Neill’s American accent in Jurassic Park was a load of T-rex poo’.”
Dern defended Neill, telling him he was giving “the fans everything they wanted”.
Jurassic World: Dominion, which also stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, will be released on 10 June.
