Yahoo Movies Here's how those Donald Trump jokes wound up in 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom'
Warning: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom spoilers ahead.
Jurassic World came out in 2015 and made no mention of then-President Barack Obama. But we’re in 2018 now, baby, and if you think you can escape the chaos surrounding the White House even in a science-fiction/horror movie about weaponized dinosaurs, you’re wrong. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, fresh off a blockbuster box-office weekend, has some fun at the expense of President Trump. Yahoo Entertainment welcomed the movie’s director, J.A. Bayona, to our Los Angeles studios to explain the origin of the jokes.
‘Nasty woman’
At one point, the villainous Ken Wheatley, played with campy glee by Silence of the Lambs star Ted Levine, uses one of Trump’s most famous insults — “nasty woman.” While Trump deployed the phrase in a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, Wheatley directs it at Zia Rodriguez (Daniella Pineda). As it turns out, this was a choice made by Levine.
“I gave a lot of freedom to the actors,” Bayona told us. “So, for example, that line from Ted Levine, that was the line that he said on set. That was not scripted. And I felt it was the right thing to do — it’s kind of like a joke at the end of the scene. I thought it was good, so we left that line in the final cut.”
Hair today, gone tomorrow
Another character to channel the current POTUS is the shady Mr. Eversol (Toby Jones). During his unsuccessful attempt to escape the deadly Indoraptor, Eversol stands shell-shocked in an elevator. When the hybrid dinosaur lets out a roar, Eversol’s hair starts to flap — not unlike the time Trump boarded Air Force One on a hairspray-defying blustery day. Again, it was a decision made by an actor and supported by the director.
“Toby made the design of his character,” said Bayona. “He created the character. He wanted to make this money man. He created this hair and teeth. I liked it, so I support him in that sense.”
President denies reality
During one of the earliest scenes, a sneaky cable news crawl can be spotted detailing how the U.S. president questions the presence of dinosaurs as footage of said dinosaurs plays out onscreen. Fallen Kingdom co-writer and executive producer Colin Trevorrow is to thank for that little joke.
“Colin made those headlines,” Bayona explained. “When you do a movie like Jurassic, the whole idea of Jurassic Park comes from the books of Michael Crichton. These books were pretty grounded. They talk about the world we live in. They talk about re-creating dinosaurs but taking real scientific theories. And they talk about the relation that man has toward nature and science and new technologies. These things are more relevant than ever nowadays.”
Watch: J.A. Bayona explains how Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is really a haunted-house movie:
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