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Jeff on The Lost World

Any nervousness about starring in the sequel to the biggest movie in history?
Well, it's enjoyable. Even if you loved the first one, this one supplies everything you wanted to see and more. There's more carnage. I think kids are gonna go nuts.

And there's more of you.
I feel lucky Steven Spielberg and his people would trust me with a nice part of the show. Steven seemed really jazzed up about avoiding sequel pitfalls and supplying people with something that exceeded their expectations, and was interesting and compelling.

So, was it as much fun for you as it is for us?
It was a fistful of enjoyment for me. The physical stuff I got to do was fun. The whole hanging-off-the-cliff sequence was a masterful Spielberg set piece. It was uncomfortable and challenging, but I wanted to act it out.

Then the whole character was changed. Here's somebody who was self-interested, has limited involvement with the world, who goes through this crisis and becomes somebody who can extend himself, raise himself for something bigger and help the people he cares about. That's a nice character arc.

Especially considering the movie is essentially about rampaging dinosaurs.
Well, I tried. I certainly think Steven knows a piece like this works better with people you care about, who are real and compelling.

Is there a special trick to doing that when all of these massive visual things are going on?
We did have to turn off our laptops and cel phones around the robots because they might have made them do things.

And what about the special effects that aren't there while you're performing?
Well, you just have to know as specifically as possible what they are and where they're going to be. It's easier after seeing the first movie. That one was really a leap of trust; you were going, "You really can make these things?" This time, you knew they could.

But I was never with raptors the last time. So, on this set, I had one of the ILM team act out the part of the dinosaur with me as I rehearsed it. I had them run around, show me the speed at which they'd be trying to bite me.

Which is wilder: a raptor or costar Vince Vaughn?
Vince is an unpredictable force of wild humor. When we were on the plane to Hawaii, there was this uptight flight attendant. Vince took the headphones out of their bag, put the plastic bag over his head and started to breathe in and out grotesquely. She said, "Sir, I don't think that's funny." So, he tore it off and started yelling, "I won't be good! I won't be good!"

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