Sam Neill Says He Thought He Might Die When Hurricane Hit 'Jurassic Park' Set

The characters in Jurassic Park had to worry about getting killed by dinosaurs, but even though the T. rex and Velociraptors were just special effects, the actors in the classic '90s films did have something very real to worry about. According to Sam Neill, when a hurricane hit the set, he and co-star Laura Dern wondered if they might die. 

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly ahead of the Super Bowl, which will feature a Jurassic Park-themed ad that reunites Neill, Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, Neill reflected on the first time the three actors worked together. It was in the summer of 1992 when they were filming the Steven Spielberg-directed movie in Hawaii. That's when Hurricane Iniki hit the set. 

"We'd been working in Hawaii for a week or 10 days, and we went down to report for duty at 6:30 in the morning or whatever it is," remembered Neill. "And they said, 'We're not going to work today...There's a hurricane coming.'"

Neill and Dern went down to the beach as the hurricane was still approaching, and as Neill put it "it all went very still" and "the tide went out a bit."

"'Do you think we might die today?'" Neill recalls Dern asking.  

"'I think that's entirely possible,'" he remembers answering.

Iniki remains the most powerful hurricane to hit Hawaii in recorded history, and it caused $3.1 billion in damage and was responsible for seven deaths. Luckily for dinosaur fans, none of them occurred on the set of Jurassic Park. Neill recalls that it destroyed the sets and delayed the cast's travel back to Los Angeles for a couple of days because "the airport was covered in dead trees and things." 

"I've been through a few semi-disasters on films, but that's the closest we actually came to death," Neill said. 

The three actors and Spielberg spent those days entertaining each other, since they couldn't work on the movie.

Neill Will Reprise His Role as Dr. Alan Grant in a Super Bowl Commercial

Neill, Dern, and Goldblum—who reunited on the big screen when they reprised their Jurassic Park roles in the sequel Jurassic World: Dominion—will do it again in the name of capitalism this Sunday for the Big Game. In a Super Bowl ad for Xfinity, the trio re-create various scenes from Jurassic Park, only this time the network doesn't go down and the dinosaurs don't escape, thanks to Xfinity.

The commercial was shot in California, and no hurricanes hit the set.