Jurassic World’s first bisexual character has queerness ‘in her DNA’: ‘It’s about more than a kiss’

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Jurassic World: Dominion will introduce the franchise’s first bisexual character, played by DeWanda Wise.

Wise will play pilot Kayla Watts in the upcoming sequel, which will also see the return of Jurassic Park legends Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Sam Neill.

Ahead of the film’s release, Wise weighed in on queer characters film, and promised that Kayla won’t be another example of ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ representation.

“[Queer representation]’s important, and it’s also important to me that we continue to expand the conversation beyond looking for the kiss,” Wise told ComicBook.com.

“If you’re queer, you’re queer … I said what I said. All the time. You don’t turn it off. It doesn’t matter if your partner’s in the cockpit with you. It just is a statement of being. 

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“So that was one of the things just in her DNA, in her dino DNA, ensuring that she is who she is. Kayla is bi, and that’s just, it is what it is.”

Kayla will be the first canonically queer character in the Jurassic Park franchise. The last Jurassic World film, Fallen Kingdom, originally included a scene explaining that paleo-veterinarian Zia Rodriguez (played by Daniella Pineda) is a lesbian. However, it was cut from the movie. 

In a conversation with Yahoo Entertainment, Pineda said of the scene: “It was also cool because it was a little insight into my character. But they cut it.”

“The whole thing came as a surprise to us. We always thought of Zia as lesbian,” Director JA Bayona told Yahoo Movies UK.

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“And then the scene where she was actually talking about it…it was a very long scene and it broke the pace of the whole movie so we decided to cut it.”

Kayla won’t be the first queer character played by DeWanda Wise. Previously, the actor has played Nola Darling in She’s Gotta Have It, Netlix’s TV series adaptation of the movie by the same name. In the show, the young Brooklyner describes herself as a “sex-positive, polyamorous pansexual” who doesn’t let gender get in her way.

Jurassic World: Dominion is set to be released in theaters on 10 June.