Exclusive: Bryce Dallas Howard talks about preparing for Jurassic World 2

Steven Spielberg's JURASSIC PARK came around at exactly the right moment in my life at the height of my dinosaur obsession. I fell in love with it immediately and, like many of you, the thoughts of watching that thrilling film remain a cherished childhood memory. Although I certainly enjoyed it as a piece of entertainment, I found that Colin Trevorrow's JURASSIC WORLD didn't trigger that same sense of awe. Perhaps it's unfair to place my hopes for replicating that childhood enthusiasm on the shoulders of a sequel which came out almost twenty-five years after the original, but I don't think that it's entirely out of order to want to love that world once again.

Development on the JURASSIC WORLD sequel is well underway with production due to kick off in March, and our own Eric Walkuski sat down for a chat with Bryce Dallas Howard today during the junket for GOLD and asked her about just how different her character will be in the sequel.

That's part of the story, that's part of the journey. She definitely went through a lot and is permanently changed because of that. But she is also who she is. Chris [Pratt] and I are already having a lot of fun with that. We're in that stage right now of figuring out the backstory and talking through all those beats, like everything that happened in between. That's always such a fun time. You're like, 'No, she did that?! No way, he couldn't have!' It's really, really fun, and then you step into the present moment and it becomes alive.

I didn't exactly warm to Bryce Dallas Howard's character of Claire over the course of JURASSIC WORLD, but Howard is certainly a capable actress and knowing that her arc will continue and hopefully grow in the sequel (and likely throughout the entire trilogy) is something I'm absolutely on-board with. J.A. Bayona (A MONSTER CALLS) will be taking over directing duties this time around and he's said that the sequel will be "massive" and "way bigger than the last one." It will also, thankfully, take the story into a place we've never seen before.

I think what is tricky about doing the fifth movie of a franchise is how will you bring in new stuff and still pay tribute to what we all know and the legacy of the film. So, it’s the balance between the new stuff and the old stuff. I think Colin did a great job in the first one finding the balance between what people are expecting and what people are being again. I was kind of surprised when he pitched me the story because it leads the story to a place that we’ve never seen before and it brings some of the most important elements from the other films and makes something with them. I thought that was very interesting. It’s the second chapter of a trilogy so it gets the story to a place that wants you leaving more and more.

JURASSIC WORLD 2 is set for a June 22, 2018 release.