Sam Neill nearly died on the set of ‘Jurassic Park’: “we came very close”
Veteran actor Sam Neill almost died on the set of Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park. Writing in his new memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?, the 75-year-old recalls the moment a catastrophic hurricane hit the Hawaiian archipelago where he, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and the rest of the cast and crew were filming.
“We almost died in the first few weeks where we were filming on Kauai in the Hawaiian archipelago,” he writes [via The Independant]. “One morning we were told to stay back at the hotel and expect a hurricane later in the day. I was down on the beach with Laura Dern, who asked me: ‘Sam, do you think we might die today?’ As these massive black clouds approached over the Pacific I found I had to tell her that in all honesty the answer was, ‘Yes, I thought we might.”
Hurricane Iniki struck Hawaii on September 5th, 1992. The twister tanked Category Four on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, making it the most powerful hurricane to hit the island in recorded history. More than 14,00 homes were destroyed.
“It turned out we came very close,” Neill writes. “They herded us into a ballroom, all the cast and crew, a few hours before Hurricane Iniki hit us. Iniki was a Category 4 hurricane and it absolutely wrecked the island, including all our sets. Six people died, and it caused more than $3bn (£2.4bn) worth of damage.” Within three or four hours, Neill and the crew were “surrounded by wreckage of our huge resort hotel”. Footage of the hurricane made its way into Jurassic Park.
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