- Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey tell PEOPLE about their characters’ unique chemistry in Jurassic World Rebirth
- The costars also talk forming a friendship during the “insane” experience filming the action movie in places like Malta and Thailand
- A mutual friend told the pair before they met: “You guys are going to really have a great time together”
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey spark a new kind of onscreen dynamic for the Jurassic franchise.
The pair share the screen in Jurassic World Rebirth, which also stars Mahershala Ali, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Ed Skrein. As badass mercenary Zora Bennett, Johansson leads a dangerous expedition, building a rapport with Bailey’s character, the super-smart paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis.
Johansson, 40, tells PEOPLE that Zora is “taken by Henry’s passion and kindness,” and she finds his “enthusiasm” to be “very charming.”
“He’s very full of life and curious,” she continues of Loomis. “His curiosity is very appealing to her, and they just immediately click in that way because they’re both curious. He’s clearly somebody who has dedicated his life to something he feels passionate about, and they share that.”
Wicked star Bailey, 37, calls his dinosaur-expert character “so tightly wound,” adding that he “picks up on” the fact that Zora is “emotionally intelligent” and “incredibly great at placating situations.”
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey in “Jurassic World Rebirth”. Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment
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“I think she reads him really well from the get-go,” he says. “They’re both as passionate in very different ways about what they do and about their lives, and I think they click in that way, as do all the characters.”
Off-camera, the costars formed a friendship while filming the movie together in far-flung locations like Malta and Thailand.
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey on June 23, 2025. Cindy Ord/WireImage
“I’d been tipped off that we were going to get along,” says Bailey. Johansson adds, “We had a mutual friend that said, ‘You guys are going to really have a great time together.’ So then we had to, because we couldn’t let our friend down!” He jokes back with a smile, “Exactly. We owe it to them, the responsibility to get along.”
Bailey’s first impression of Johansson? “Immediately you just go, ‘Gosh.’ [She’s] super funny, intelligent, kind. She led the film with such incredible energy, and that’s on and off camera. It just was so apparent very quickly that it was going to be a knockout summer.”
Johansson says “we all laughed a lot” while making the movie, which is the seventh Jurassic blockbuster to take over the big screen. “We were thrown into such extraordinary circumstances physically where we were shooting. It was just insane.”
For Bailey, the experience making the project with a cast and crew so passionate about the franchise was “magical.” He adds, “And then the people you meet along the way are just sort of the cherry on the cake.”
Jurassic World Rebirth is in theaters now.
