Laura Dern Got Fangirled By Swiftie For ‘Bejeweled’ While Literally Standing Next To ‘Jurassic Park’ Sign
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No major spoilers, but if you tuned in to the second season of HBO’s hit vacation nightmare series White Lotus you may have missed a super low-key guest appearance from Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern. On Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night (Jan. 5), the host asked Dern to describe how she ended up making a hush-hush cameo on the series.
And, of course, what it’s like to be spotted by Taylor Swift fans in the wild thanks to her role in the singer’s “Bejweled” video.
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“Recorded from the closet of my room,” Dern said of the secret bit she laid down as a favor to her old friend, Lotus writer and creator Mike White, who previously teamed up with Dern on his previous HBO series, Enlightened. As explained by Kimmel, Dern had an uncredited voice role as star Michael Imperioli’s estranged wife, who is heard, but never seen, in the show.
“It was amazing,” Dern said of the drop-in. “I loved literally recording into my phone and him saying, ‘just go to town, be as angry as you want.'” Dern said she didn’t tell anyone about phoning it in, but noted that her son figure it out when they watched the show together.
Kimmel also asked Dern about her on-screen cameo as the evil stepmother to the Haim sisters in Taylor Swift’s Cinderella-inspired “Bejeweled” video. “Taylor asked me and it sounded like such an incredible time and I was amazed by what a great filmmaker she is, how prepared she was, how improvisational and fun it was. I had the time of my life,” Dern said of Swift’s turn as a director on the shoot for the song from her Midnights album.
Sure, it was fun and tens of millions of people saw the video, but Dern noted that on a recent trip to Hawaii with family she happened to be standing near a sign for a tour of scenes from the Jurassic Park series — Dern has appeared in three films in the series — when a Swiftie spotted her in the wold. Not wanting to do the “whole Jurassic Park thing” while trying to enjoy a vacay with her family, Dern was expecting the girl to ask for a selfie with legendary paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler.
Instead, the fan squealed, “‘Oh my God! Oh my God! Aren’t you the girl in the Taylor Swift video?'” A good sport, Dern said she agreed to a photo marking her pivotal role as a Swift-adjacent actress, which, of course, was framed with the “Welcome to Jurassic Park” sign in the background.
Watch Dern on Kimmel below.
