'Jurassic World' Funniest Scene: Lauren Lapkus Shares the Story Behind That Friendly Hug
Lauren Lapkus, left, and Jake Johnson in ‘Jurassic World’ (Photo: Universal)
Now that nearly everyone has seen Jurassic World, we are lifting the gag order on its spoilers. Which means we can talk about the scene that got the biggest laugh, featuring Lauren Lapkus (Orange Is the New Black) and Jake Johnson (New Girl). Lapkus gave Yahoo Movies the backstory of the sequence on Monday, revealing there was another version that didn’t make the final cut.
Warning: If you still haven’t seen the movie and don’t want the scene spoiled, do not read further.
In the blockbuster dino sequel, Lapkus and Johnson play Vivian and Lowery, respectively — staffers who monitor all technical aspects of dinosaur theme park. With dozens of dinos wreaking a whole lot of havoc on the island, everyone decides to evacuate. In heroic fashion, Lowery — a nerdy guy who likes to keep his desk decorated with dino toys — decides to stay behind. As Vivian begins to leave, Lowery lunges toward her in true romantic style. Then the movie defies this cinematic cliché setup as Vivian stops Lowery from kissing her: “Uh, I have a boyfriend.” They share a warm, platonic hug, instead.
Here’s what Lapkus had to say us about the scene, along with her reaction to the movie’s record-breaking weekend:
Jurassic World is a record-setting blockbuster and easily your most high-profile role to to date. What’s been going through your mind these past couple of days?
Yeah! It’s totally surreal. It’s crazy. I can’t even really wrap my head around what that means — that it had that big global opening. I don’t know what that means in the world. I’ve never been a part of anything so huge. It’s definitely mindboggling.
Is your phone ringing off the hook?
I’m definitely getting a lot of emails from random people in my life. Besides that, no crazy changes. It’s been a couple of fun days of having my friends see it, my family, and everybody.
About that hugging scene between you and Jake Johnson: Both of you have roots in stage improv, so was any of it improvised?
It was. The dialogue in that scene was improvised. We shot it a couple of different ways. Initially in the script we were supposed to kiss at the end. And then as they were shooting the film Colin [Trevorrow, the director] was like, “Maybe we’ll have this go a different way.” Ultimately, on that day, we shot it with the kiss and we shot it without the kiss. It was fun to get to improvise both lines. We even did it a couple of different ways with me refusing to kiss.
Whose idea was it to go without the kiss?
Ultimately it was Colin’s decision, but I’m not sure who’s initial idea it was at the end of the day. I’m so glad he did make that decision because it was so funny. I loved seeing it at the end. I felt like it was like the perfect little ending for Lowery’s story, too — to have him just be a loser [laughs] in that moment. It’s like going to be that big hero moment and it just gets taken away and the air is popped out of his balloon.
Where was the scene shot?
It was shot in New Orleans. We were working on a NASA base. We had to get NASA clearance to shoot there. It [became] the soundstage where they built the control tower.
How many takes did the scene require?
Probably 10, maybe less. And probably 50-50 on the kiss and the not-kiss.
Did you do different improvisations for each take?
We improvised a little bit within each one — particularly in the one where we don’t kiss, the dialogue was different from take to take. There was a version where I mentioned my boyfriend’s name, etcetera, but ultimately it was very close to what we end up with every time.
It probably gets the biggest laugh in the movie. Have you watched it with a normal movie-going audience?
Yes, I went with a group of friends on opening night. And that was really fun. There was a big laugh — so that was definitely a fun moment.
Did anyone in the audience recognize you?
They did because my friends were cheering and then I felt embarrassed [laughs]. But what are you gonna do?
What was the best part about filming it?
What I loved about it so much is that Colin was so open-minded about it and really gave us the time to explore and try out different things. That was so cool that we got to do that in such a big movie — to have that moment between the underdog characters. Even if they’d gone with the kiss, it would have been a cool ending because you rarely get to see the two nerds have a moment in an action movie like that. But even without it, it gives such shared moment on screen that is rare in those big movies for those types of side characters.