Tea Leoni Impressed By Dinos

[stripe]

Jurassic Park III star Téa Leoni told SCI FI Wire that she didn't have to think long about director Joe Johnston's offer of a lead role. "I love having enormous co-stars," she said in an interview. "I was once a co-star to a comet," she added, referring to her 1998 SF film, Deep Impact. And after hearing who her human co-stars would be--Sam Neill and William H. Macy--she recalled, "I thought, 'OK, I want to do this film.'"

Leoni added that she was pleased to find out that she would not be overshadowed by her reptilian co-stars. "I would say that the script took me by surprise when I read it," she said. "I was fully prepared to be second fiddle again to a very large co-star. When I read the script, I was very impressed that I did care about these people, and I didn't want to see one go--and I was surprised at who didn't make it through the rest of the film. I mean, if we don't care about these people, if we don't care about the story, if it's lame, then this [story] isn't going to be nearly as impressive."

Working with the dinosaurs proved more intimidating than Leoni anticipated. "The dinosaurs are a whole new bag," she said. "I was prepared that I would be working a lot with a blue screen, and the truth is, we didn't work with a blue screen nearly as often as I would have thought. For the most part, we were face to face with some of the most terrifying puppets [imaginable]. The raptors stand about our height on back legs. We had probably about six of them, and they each had such different looks. You could see the difference between the males and females, not just in their physical design, but their behavior. I have to say, I can't remember the last time I've been so impressed by an effect and had it help me so much in my work."

[Curupira]

Good review! I wanna go see it now! I'm still a little mad at Tea Leoni for stealing Mulder though :rain: