With the dinosaurs making it off Isla Nublar and out into the world after the fall of Jurassic World, the Jurassic franchise is going to need more heroes. Not just heroes to help folks steer clear of meat-asauruses, but more so to keep humans with nefarious intentions in check. Cue DeWanda Wise’s Kayla Watts!
At the start of Jurassic World Dominion, Claire and Owen (Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt) are doing what they can to stay out of the public eye and keep Maisie (Isabella Sermon) safe. However, they ultimately find themselves on a globetrotting dino-filled adventure and that’s how they wind up crossing paths with Kayla, a contract pilot who becomes instrumental to the success of their mission.
With Jurassic World Dominion making its way into theaters on June 10th, I got the chance to chat with Wise not once, but twice! We’ll have a lengthy Collider Ladies Night conversation for you a bit closer to the film’s debut, but how about a little Kayla 101 right now to start building the Jurassic hype?
Given the extensive planning that goes into massive and very ambitious effects-heavy studio blockbusters, you don’t often hear about actors having a hand in the writing and development stages too often, especially when they’re franchise newcomers. However, Wise got that chance. In fact, director Colin Trevorrow gives Wise and co-writer Emily Carmichael credit for defining who Kayla is. During our chat, Wise discussed some of her top priorities when creating the character:
“I gave Kayla a dialogue pass. I gave Kayla a full dialogue pass. She was already very clear on the page. I had a couple of touchstones that were nonnegotiable. Her background’s her background. She was always Air Force. I knew that there were certain moments in the script that I had to execute, so I knew that she had to have a certain physicality for you to believe that she could pull Chris Pratt out of the water because he is I don’t know how many times my actual size. So there were certain things that I wanted to ensure that were true, but also, we workshopped her. Truly like old school theater nerd, we both went to NYU workshopped her for a couple of weeks to really refine and integrate her backstory.”
Did that backstory include any previous dinosaur-related missions Kayla went on? Yes, it did! She teased:
“I won’t say because, you know, maybe there will be another thing. I’m vying for a prequel. Anyway, that’s not the point! Point is, I talked about it a lot funny enough. One of my co-conspirators with Kayla, which you can see very clearly in this film was [costume designer] Joanna Johnston in the construction of that character, so a lot of her adventures we built into the wardrobe.”
While Wise wouldn’t reveal any specifics on Kayla’s past missions, she did pinpoint a piece of that wardrobe worth keeping an eye out for that was acquired during one of those trips!
“She had this moment, and it’s probably gonna be in the extended cut, maybe, we’ll see, but she has this beautiful pair of brass knuckles and we have this entire backstory of this adventure that she had gone on in South Africa — [laughs] Girl, I love backstories! — where she procured these knuckles. Because a lot of Kayla has this kind of Indiana Jones, she’s been everywhere. Some of her travels are for work and she goes on them because she has to go on them, and some are just for her.”
Clearly Kayla is very involved in the dino realm, so I opted to ask how past events, specifically the fall of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, influenced the person she’s become. Here’s what Wise said:
“She really makes a true hero’s call. There’s something that’s awakening inside of her when we meet her at the top of this movie and it’s because she’s in part very disillusioned, you know? She’s very disillusioned and disappointed at the folly of man. And she’s in this place when we first meet her that’s just like, ‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ and she’s just made a living off the mistakes of the people who have come before her. So you kind of have this level of resignation, but there’s something that’s building in her that she’s come to the end of the line of herself where she’s just like, ‘There is something I can do though, actually.’ And that was really inspiring to me to be like, we can all be heroes in a way and that at any moment we can make those turning points for ourselves to stand up for something when we see something happening.”
Eager to hear more from Wise? Be sure to check out our full five-minute chat in the video interview at the top of this article. Also, keep an eye out for Wise’s episode of Collider Ladies Night covering her entire journey from She’s Gotta Have It to exiting Captain Marvel and scoring her Jurassic World Dominion role!