Why Dr. Henry Wu Actor BD Wong Was Bitter About Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park
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"Jurassic Park" is one of the most beloved blockbuster movies of all time. More than that, director Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel of the same name was the biggest film of all time at the box office at the time of its release in 1993. It's the kind of movie any actor would be thrilled to have on their resume, even if their role in it was relatively small. That's why it might be surprising to learn that BD Wong, who played Dr. Henry Wu, was bitter about his role in the film for a long time.
For those who may need a refresher, Dr. Henry Wu is the chief geneticist working with John Hammond at Jurassic Park. In Crichton's novel, Wu is a pretty crucial character. In the movie, however, he's mostly in just one scene, albeit an important one. Crichton's original script for "Jurassic Park" hewed much closer to his book, but that's not the script draft Spielberg ended up using. In the version we got, Wu is a bit player in a much larger story about dinosaurs once again ruling the Earth (or, at the very least, an island off the coast of Costa Rica).
In a 2021 interview with AV Club, Wong addressed his time in "Jurassic Park" and didn't exactly speak fondly about the treatment of his character in the original film. Certainly from the actor playing Wu, his perspective feels valid. Here's what he had to say about it:
"I did this bit part in the original 'Jurassic Park' movie, and anybody who worked on that movie would probably have to be honest and tell you that they didn't have any designs for that character at all. They didn't care about him, they don't even explain what happened to him at the end of the movie when everyone's evacuating the island! Clearly, he was not a priority for anyone. And I was very bitter about that for many years."
Jurassic World presented BD Wong with the opportunity he had been waiting for
"My good friend Nathan once said to me, 'Oh, well, you don't have to worry about that, because that's going to come back to you. You'll see. They'll come back to you,'" Wong added. "And I was, like, 'I don't see how that's ever going to come back to me.' I really could not see what he saw."
Spoiler alert, they came back to him. Following the release of "Jurassic Park III" in 2001, Universal Pictures took a 14-year break from the franchise, although it wasn't for a lack of trying; several would-be versions of "Jurassic Park 4" were developed during that time that were never made. However, in 2015, everything finally came together in the form of director Colin Trevorrow's "Jurassic World."
The conceit of the movie is that the park that John Hammond envisioned, against all odds, has opened and has been operating for some time (until, naturally, things go wrong). Though the film largely tries to forge its own identity by centering on new characters, such as Chris Pratt's Owen Grady, it did make sure it was connected to the previous "Jurassic Park" movies directly, with Henry Wu serving as a key piece of connective tissue.
"In their looking for loose ends, Colin Trevorrow remembered this character who played a huge part in the book, had a huge death in the book, and allowed him to be reinvestigated," Wong explained in that same interview. In "Jurassic World," Wu returns as the park's chief geneticist, helping to engineer the deadly Indominous Rex. Wong further explained why bringing Wu back made so much sense:
"It was perfect, because he needed someone who hadn't died to be a touchstone to and a bridge from the original movie, someone who would really actually have been there. Not someone who would've gone away and they'd have to fly them back and make up some excuse about why they were back, but someone who was actually part of the origin story of where this all came from in the first place."
Dr. Henry Wu became a very important character in the Jurassic World trilogy
Even though Wong had to suffer through more than two decades of bitterness, it paid off in the end. "Jurassic World" grossed $1.67 billion at the box office, making it one of the biggest movies ever at the time of its release. That paved the way for two sequels in the forms of 2018's "Fallen Kingdom" and then 2022's "Dominion," both of which also made their way past the $1 billion mark globally.
Wong reprised his role as Henry Wu in each of the movies. After Jurassic World closed, the character helped engineer dinosaurs in secret, including the Indoraptor. Later, he worked for Biosyn in "Dominion," attempting to make up for some of the problems he had caused in the world. The character also appeared in the "Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous" animated series and the "Jurassic World Evolution" video games. It may have taken a long time, but Wu eventually became the important character Wong always wanted him to be.
"It's an aspect of being in the movies that rarely ever happens. I think it's really fun for me. Not only for me to be playing the same character, but also for it to be so long," Wong reflected in an interview with /Film tied to "Jurassic World" in 2015. "I really have a great respect and admiration for Colin. Colin made me feel great about it and welcomed me back into it; that made me feel good. I guess part of it is that I felt a little left out of the first one. This was a really sweet return to putting some finishing touches on a character that felt to me rather slim."