'Jurassic World Dominion' director teases return of original 'Jurassic Park' villain Lewis Dodgson
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About a month before Jurassic World Dominion resumed its shoot against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic in late summer of 2020, Universal Pictures confirmed the return of another classic character from 1993's Jurassic Park.
That'd be Lewis Dodgson (Dodgson! Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here!), the unscrupulous BioSyn representative who brought about the destruction of John Hammond's dream when he bribed Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) with a suitcase of cash and a sneaky Barbasol canister to steal dinosaur embryos from InGen. As we all know, Nedry paid dearly for his attempt at corporate espionage, but what about Dodgson? Sure, the character got his just deserts in Michael Crichton's literary follow-up to Jurassic Park — The Lost World — but has not reared his sleazy head in the film franchise for close to three decades. Until now, that is.
In the new Jurassic World movie, Dodgson is played by The Amazing-Spider-Man veteran Campbell Scott (the actor from the original Jurassic Park movie, Cameron Thor, was jailed for sexual assault in 2016). With that said, Scott has been noticeably absent from all of the current marketing materials, which have preferred to shine a spotlight on the return of Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum).
It makes a ton of sense when you think about it, Dodgson is a shady dude and as such, prefers to remain in the shadows, pulling all the strings. And that's exactly what he's doing when the story kicks off. Since the world became overrun with dinosaurs at the end of 2018's Fallen Kingdom, BioSyn has nabbed an exclusive contract to house and study any prehistoric animal captured by world governments.
"The way he bobs and weaves around people — you can tell he's a calculator," director and co-writer Colin Trevorrow said of Dodgson while speaking to Empire for the magazine's latest issue (now on sale). "But he probably isn't great at parties."
"He will do anything to get people out of his way, or on his side, depending on who he meets," added Scott.
Fittingly enough, the actor found himself gravitating to the Dilophosaurus animatronic while on set. "My favorite has to be him. Or her. It's hard to tell," Scott said of the venom-spitting dino species that took out Nedry and foiled BioSyn's plans all those years ago. "But he's got the frills. And he's got the sounds. I love that 'Hrrrrrr.'"
Of course we don't know, but if the villain should also meet his end with an eye-full of sticky poison, well, that, folks, would be what we call karmic justice at its very finest.
Mr. Dodgson will get up to no good when Jurassic World Dominion hits the big screen Friday, June 10.
