If you’re not familiar with DeWanda Wise, get ready for that to change because she is one of the best new additions to the Jurassic franchise since the release of the 1993 original.

Come June 10th, you’ll get to meet Kayla Watts in Jurassic World Dominion. She’s a contract pilot who gets gigs from Biosyn, a biotech company that created a safe haven for dinosaurs in the Dolomites in Italy. She’s usually all business — complete an assignment, get the money, move on — but when she crosses paths with Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Chris Pratt), she’s compelled to change course.

DeWanda Wise in Jurassic World Dominion
Image via Universal

In honor of Jurassic World Dominion’s big debut, Wise took some time to join us for an episode of Collider Ladies Night. While Dominion may mark her very first massive studio blockbuster, Wise has been busy racking up impressive titles for quite some time including Spike Lee’s Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It, a project that sent her star soaring in a big way. How exactly did Wise score an opportunity like that? Did it have anything to do with studying at NYU where Lee’s a professor? Here's what she said:

“I don’t think Spike remembered me from NYU. When I graduated he had this thing called 20 for 20 Cruise, right? And I remember working it. There were a number of us young either filmmakers or actors or whatever, and my job at the time, I think I was — I don’t think. I remember what I was doing. I was following around Wesley Snipes and his family and taking care of his children and just making sure that they were safe and having a good time. That was my job on the 20 for 20 Cruise. And I was also, at the time, always auditioning for stuff. He still directs a lot of commercials. At the time he was still doing some music video stuff, so I knew that entire camp, that 40 Acres camp, for many years. Don’t think he remembered any of that, but that’s fair because he is Spike Lee. He’s very famous and kind of an icon. By the time I got to She’s Gotta Have It, I was in the work of one of his former students called How to Tell You're a Douchebag, and he saw that film and the writers in the room of She’s Gotta Have It were all accomplished playwrights in New York City and they had seen me in a play. So it was this kind of perfect convergence of follow your bliss and me just following my heart and right place right time.”

DeWanda Wise in She's Gotta Have It
Image via Universal

She’s Gotta Have It ran for two seasons and received critical praise all along the way. While one might suspect it’d be a major disappointment for such a project to get canceled, Wise didn’t see it that way. She explained:

“We had two amazing seasons. Season 1, there was one moment where I just remember they were clapping for me mid-production because I worked 52 days. She’s a true #1, you know? 52 days in a row! Being a lead on a TV show specifically requires an unfathomable degree of stamina and wellness and morale and leadership. So I did the first season and then the second season we filmed over two moths in three different places, and I felt both seasons a sense of story completion. Because Spike at the end of the day is a filmmaker so he’s used to a kind of more cohesive story and for my part, for my money, there were no cliffhangers. It wasn’t like one of those things where you’re working on a show that the creators expected it to go five years or whatever and it’s so dissatisfying because you knew what was gonna happen in Season 5. We told two complete stories back to back, and I still have those lifelong friendships.”

DeWanda Wise in She's Gotta Have It
Image via Universal

RELATED: DeWanda Wise Reveals Why She Exited 'Captain Marvel'

Wise has a knack for finding the good in challenging situations, a quality that makes her an especially delightful and inspiring Collider Ladies Night guest. In early 2018, Wise scored a role that many would see as the ultimate big break. She was cast as Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel. However, just two months after her casting was announced, she’d have to back out due to scheduling conflicts.

When the filmmakers opted to expand the role of Maria in the film, it conflicted with her commitment to Season 2 of She’s Gotta Have It. “I committed to She’s Gotta Have It. When you commit to something, you commit to it.” Wise also added, “It conflicted with a very specific moment that we were shooting in Season 2, a very special episode that we shot that I would not trade for anything in the world when we shot in Puerto Rico.”

Anthony Ramos and DeWanda Wise in She's Gotta Have It
Image via Netflix

While Wise did admit that pulling out of the MCU “was painful” at the time, she did emphasize that looking back, it's easy to see why it had to happen that way. After all, we got a great Maria in Lashana Lynch, Wise got to make Season 2 of She’s Gotta Have It, and she eventually went on to play a pilot in a franchise film. And that’s not all! Wise was also only able to do the hugely charming Netflix romantic comedy Someone Great because she exited Captain Marvel. She explained:

“I couldn’t do Captain Marvel and the day after I texted Gina [Rodriguez] and I said, ‘I feel like there’s a role for me in your movie.’ So that’s also a part of it. I would not have done Someone Great if I were in Captain Marvel. And the experience of working on that movie also changed my life. I have a lot of those! But it also changed my life because it really set the bar for what I wanted my on-set experience to be because we were having as much fun as it looked like we were having making that movie. And it was the first time that I had this experience where the final thing, the finished product — I don’t want to say I didn’t care, but the process of working on it was so beautiful and so precious, it just gave me this feeling that was just like, ‘Well, I hope other people enjoy it because I do!’”

Jenny, Blair and Erin are sitting in the Washington Square Park

At this point, Wise has proved her worth time and time again, and a franchise filmmaker took notice, Colin Trevorrow. There was no auditioning for the role of Kayla Watts in Jurassic World Dominion. The opportunity came in the form of an offer, a very well deserved offer. As exciting as that can be, it does beg the question, does receiving a role as an offer up one’s confidence or create even more pressure to live up to the filmmaker’s expectations? Here’s Wise’s take on it:

“It’s a situation where I know I have to live up to the expectation. And it’s a balance too because it’s a situation where you know you have to live up to a certain expectation but also, you have to exceed an expectation, right? So if you cast me in something and you saw something in another role and you’re like, ‘Hey, come do that over here,’ then there’s a little more friction, right? There’s a little more push and pull of being like, I’m not giving you Nola again though. I know you kind of think that’s what you want, but trust me, I have something not better necessarily, but more right for this.”

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Image via Universal

Trevorrow put his trust in Wise and, sure enough, it was for the best. Wise is downright electric in Jurassic World Dominion. Kayla is a character with maximum tenacity and a whole lot of heart. Even alongside Jurassic World leads, Howard and Pratt, and in the presence of Jurassic Park’s big three, Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum, Wise always pops and commands attention.

While we don’t necessarily get a play-by-play of how Kayla became such a fiery contract pilot working with dinosaurs, you can feel her history through unspoken elements like wardrobe and the way that Wise carries herself in the role. While it must have been a massive disappointment for the production to go on hiatus in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wise made the most of that time by adding such layers to the character we might not have seen otherwise.

“The quarantine was when I shared a lot of the work that I do as an actor with Colin. So, honestly, the quarantine was like a two week workshop between us and there were things that I’m sure if I had jumped right into production in March when I was supposed to start that I would have figured out on the day or suggestions I would have made, but that dialogue pass, her entire dialogue pass, the incorporation of her backstory, even to the point of sending it to Joanna [Johnston] and having her incorporate it into wardrobe, all of the history of her adventures and everything she had done and who she was up until that point, that wouldn’t have happened to the extent that it did without the shutdown.”

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Image via Universal

Another key layer of Kayla comes from the fact that she would have been aware of the fall of both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, so I opted to ask Wise, of all the characters in the previous films, whose behavior during and after those disasters influenced who Kayla’s become the most? Here’s what she said:

“I think the arc of Claire Dearing, of moving from being the vicious company woman, very, very, very borderline villain that she starts as in Jurassic World in making this delicious full, full arc to where we see her in this film. But I think just in terms of the actions of that character and the ramifications and the thoughtlessness of what it means. That’s why when we meet Kayla she’s disillusioned. The same way that many of us, many of us human beings on planet Earth today feel, which is just like, ‘Well, I mean, if people in power, if they don’t care, what can I do?’ And so in that way, as a character and as an arc, it’s really inspiring because we have to believe that there’s something we can do. We have to always believe that there is something, even if that something is so small in the moment, we have to believe that our individual actions have ripple effects and ramifications for all of us.”

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Image via Universal Studios

Looking for more from Wise? We’ve got you well covered in that department! Not only can you watch her episode of Collider Ladies Night in the video at the top of this article, but you can also listen to the full 30-minute interview uncut in podcast form below: