‘Jurassic Park’ Child Star Ariana Richards Makes Appearance 29 Years After Original Film

Jurassic Park child star Ariana Richards has made an appearance on the red carpet for the newest Jurassic World Dominion, 29 years after the original film. While Richards isn’t actually in the newest installment of the franchise, she still made an appearance to support, as she originally played Lex in the 1993 original. Today, Richards is a painter, but still attends red carpet events just like this one, the last one being in 2018 for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

The adult stars of the original film have returned for Dominion, including Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler, Sam Neill as Alan Grant, and Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, alongside the new film’s leads Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

Ariana Richards of ‘Jurassic Park’ shows support for newest installment on red carpet

The red carpet appearance comes just a few days after Richards mourns the death of her father in an Instagram post. “I’m going to miss you, Dad. So very, very much. You were second to none. Here is a photo of me, my sister Bethany, and my dad Gary Richards from February 5, 1994 at the fifteenth annual Youth in Film awards, Sportsman’s Lodge, Studio City CA, where I received an award for ‘Jurassic.’ He used to accompany me to so many events, no matter how busy he was,” she said.

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“I know you all deal with your own personal losses. I just wanted to share this with you,” she adds.

Richards had turned 13 when she was filming the original ’93 movie, and then she later had a cameo in the 1997 sequel. Back in 2011, she had a chat with Interview magazine about Jurassic Park and its impact on pop culture, “It’s a film that touched so many people when it came out. … It was one of those things where I just enjoyed the experience of creating the movie, and then everything that happened after, the whole landslide, was all a surprise. I was not prepared for the fact that huge numbers of people would recognize me on a daily basis.”

She continues, “I mean, I couldn’t eat lunch somewhere without people lining up to talk to me… But now, it’s still continuing, and I’m noticing that young people — even young children who didn’t have a chance to watch it when it came out in the theaters, they’re totally loving [it] and their parents are saying that they watch it all the time.”

At the time—albeit, a while ago now—she did say she’d be open to returning to acting. “People ask me, ‘So did you step away from acting or decide to leave the business?’ I let them know it’s not about making a choice,” she said. “Acting is always going to be something that’s in my blood. It’s more that my interest has been really taken by visual art and doing the oil paintings for people. … If some really interesting role came along and found me, I’m sure I’d be thrilled to do it.”

Maybe one day we’ll see her on the silver screen again!

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