Summary

  • Jurassic Park actors Richards and Mazzello continued working after movie, but did not achieve same fame as co-stars.
  • Richards transitioned into successful painting career, while Mazzello continued acting, playing real-life figures.
  • Jurassic World: Dominion did not bring back original kids due to large cast, Trevorrow explained decision in detail.

The kids who played Lex and Tim Murphy brought a ton of heart to the original Jurassic Park movie, but where are they now? Adapted from the bestselling Michael Crichton novel of the same name, Jurassic Park revolves around a remote theme park full of cloned dinosaurs who break out of captivity and wreak havoc during a routine scientific inspection. There’s plenty of dino action to behold, but the emotional core of the movie is Dr. Alan Grant’s journey to becoming a reluctant father figure to John Hammond’s grandchildren Lex and Tim, played by Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello, respectively.

After Jaws and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park marked the third time Spielberg broke the record for highest-grossing movie of all time. The movie launched Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum to a whole new level of stardom, and raised the profiles of B.D. Wong, Wayne Knight, and Samuel L. Jackson. However, despite playing major roles in the film, Richards and Mazzello didn’t achieve the same fame as their co-stars. Still, they both continued working – in an entirely different field in Richards’ case – long after the Jurassic Park hype died down. Where are they now?

What happened to john hammoned alan grant after jurassic park
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How Old Were The Kids From The Original Jurassic Park Then & Now

The Jurassic Park Kids Were Not Even Teenagers Yet

Lex and Tim ire a dinosaur egg in Jurassic Park

Richards was born on September 11, 1979, and is currently 44 years old. Mazzello was born on September 21, 1983, and is currently 40 years old. The filming of Jurassic Park took place from August to November 1992 (and a lengthy, groundbreaking post-production process lasted until May 1993). Richards was 12 years old at the start of filming and turned 13 during production. Mazzello was eight years old at the start of filming and turned nine during production.

Interestingly enough, the characters in the movie are not the same age as the characters in Michael Crichton's original novel. The characters’ ages are flipped from the novel, in which Lex is the younger sibling at eight years old and Tim is the oldest at 11.

What Happened To Ariana Richards After Jurassic Park

Ariana Richards Became A Painter

Ariana Richards with a machine gun in Battledogs

Jurassic Park earned Richards her third Young Artist Award in a row (the first two were for her roles in the early-‘90s TV movies Switched at Birth and Locked Up: A Mother’s Rage). She also won a Bambi Award and three Favorite Newcomer awards – in Japan, Australia, and the UK – for her acclaimed role in Jurassic Park. Richards’ next film role after Jurassic Park was the ing role of Melissa Lefevre in the 1995 coming-of-age comedy Angus.

In 1997, Richards appeared in the music video for “Brick” by Ben Folds Five and returned for a cameo as Lex in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. In 2001, Richards reprised her role as Mindy Sterngood from the first Tremors film in the direct-to-video threequel Tremors 3: Back to Perfection. She later played Donna Voorhees in the made-for-TV movie Battledogs in 2013. Richards was voted in the 98th spot on VH1’s poll of the 100 Greatest Child Stars.

As an adult, Richards moved away from acting, took up painting, and carved out a successful career as an artist painting figures and landscapes in an impressionist style. As an artist, Richards won the National Professional Oil Painting Competition in 2005 and Art of the West’s Award of Excellence in 2006.

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What Happened To Joseph Mazzello After Jurassic Park

Joseph Mazzello Continues Acting

Joseph Mazzello in The Social Network looking serious

Jurassic Park wasn’t Mazzello’s only major movie release in 1993 (although it was, by far, the most successful); the young actor also appeared opposite Anthony Hopkins’ C.S. Lewis as Lewis’ stepson Douglas Gresham in the biopic Shadowlands. He also played Roarke Hartman in The River Wild, released one year after Jurassic Park became the highest-grossing movie ever made. Mazzello starred opposite Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon in this tense tale of a family’s whitewater rafting trip getting hijacked by armed fugitives.

Like Richards, Mazzello also reprised his Jurassic Park role for a cameo appearance in The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997. Whereas Richards transitioned into a different form of artistic expression, Mazzello has continued to work steadily as an actor in the decades since Jurassic Park hit theaters. He played Morris L. Sanderson, better known as “Mouse,” a G.I. Joe sniper, in G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Mazzello has become particularly renowned for playing real-life figures in fact-based films and TV shows; he played Eugene B. Sledge in the HBO miniseries The Pacific, Dustin Moskovitz in the Facebook origin story The Social Network, Paul Begala in the “Impeachment” season of American Crime Story, and Queen bass player John Deacon in the blockbuster biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

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Why The Kids Weren't In Jurassic World: Dominion

The Cast Was Already Too Large

Jurassic World: Dominion was more than just another Jurassic Park or Jurassic World sequel. It acted as a legacy sequel for the franchise, bringing the movies full circle. The movie brought back several of the original cast from Jurassic Park in order to bring closure to those characters, but it also expanded the world of the new movies. Richards and Mazzello did not reprise their roles, though Laura Dern and Sam Neill did for the first time in over 20 years.

With so many legacy characters appearing in Jurassic World: Dominion, however, some fans wondered why the original kids who visited their grandfather’s park didn’t make an appearance. Richards and Mazzello were not actually asked to return. According to director Colin Trevorrow when he spoke with The Hollywood Reporter near the movie’s premiere, there were just too many characters in the movie already.

Trevorrow explained:

Every one of these characters takes up so much oxygen in every room they step into that we really needed to be careful and thoughtful. I’ve always tried to keep a good sense of when it would start to feel like a Love Boat episode or something. (Laughs.) Where it’s just like, “Who’s the special guest in this scene?” And we have five characters [counting Lewis Dodgson] from Jurassic Park. BD Wong has been in all three of these movies, and he’s a major character in this film. And so when you’re looking at a movie like Jurassic Park, which probably had a total of eight characters and five of them are in this movie, that actually is a lot.

His explanation makes perfect sense as blockbusters can often feel overstuffed between their action sequences, character dynamics, and the actual plot of the movie. There may still be a chance for Richards and Mazello to appear in a future installment of the Jurassic Park franchise if their characters can serve the story.