Bryce Dallas Howard Won’t Wear Heels In ‘Jurassic World 2,’ Insists J.A. Bayona

Jurassic World was one of the most successful films of 2015, as it went on to gross over $1.6 billion at the box office. But while audiences revelled in returning to Isla Nublar, there was one aspect of the film that was debated over and over and over again that it ultimately transcended the success of Jurassic World.

I am of course talking about the fact that Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) managed to escape the unwanted attention of those pesky dinosaurs that were ravaging Jurassic World all while still wearing heels.

But J.A. Bayona, who has been tasked with overseeing Jurassic World 2 after the original’s director Colin Trevorrow decided to focus his attention on Star Wars: Episode 9, has now admitted to Birth.Movies.Death that won’t be the case in the sequel, insisting that Claire will instead be equipped with more suitable footwear.

J.A. Bayona insisted,

“Claire doesn’t wear high heels in this movie. There will be new dinosaurs. Finding that proper balance between what the audience is expecting and new stuff is always a challenge in doing a sequel.”

This isn’t the first time that we’ve been told Claire Dearing won’t be running away from and trying to outmaneuver dinosaurs in rather fancy footwear in Jurassic World 2. A couple of months after Jurassic World was released, Bryce Dallas Howard addressed the reaction to her running around in heels in the blockbuster while talking to Cosmopolitan.

Howard insisted that it made complete sense for Claire Dearing to be in heels throughout the film, but also made sure to reveal that Colin Trevorrow, who is still executive producing and has co-written Jurassic World 2, had already informed her she wouldn’t be doing so again in the follow-up. Howard explained,

“Colin [Trevorrow, the director,] texted me ‘#NoHeels2018.’ Claire knows to get in there now, and her dynamic with the animals has certainly shifted, and the woman you see at the end of Jurassic World is very different from the woman you see at the beginning.

But why was Bryce Dallas Howard so insistent that Claire’s footwear in Jurassic World was completely suitable? Well, according to the actress, because the film starts off with Claire belonging to the corporate environment she “needed to seem ill-equipped to be in the jungle.” Bryce Dallas Howard continued,

“She doesn’t at all expect that she’s going to be tromping through the jungle. I’m really glad that we didn’t make the choice for me to be barefoot because that would have also been kind of dangerous.”

At one moment during her staunch defense of Claire Dunning in Jurassic World Bryce Dallas Howard even decided to use an expletive to underline her completely valid point.

Bryce Dallas Howard emphatically declared,

“And you know what? She’s in high heels because she’s a woman who has been in high heels her whole life, and she can f—ing sprint in them. She can. That’s kind of how I perceived it. She doesn’t have to be in menswear and flats in order to outrun a T. Rex. That’s what women can do.”

Because of the humungous success of Jurassic World there’s quite a bit of pressure on the follow-up to both match its box office triumph and build upon the story and spectacle of its predecessor. J.A. Bayona has already proven with his work on The Orphanage, The Impossible, and now A Monster Calls, which is due out over Christmas and has so far been met with rave reviews, that he has a keen eye for making films both visually resplendent yet still touching.

We’ll get to see whether he can replicate his previous success on a huge blockbuster scale when Jurassic World 2 is finally released on June 22, 2018.

[Featured Image by Universal Pictures]