10 Real Reasons These Actors Were Cast In Major Movie Roles
8. Wayne Knight's Sweating Captivated Steven Spielberg - Jurassic Park
Wayne Knight gives a terrific performance in Jurassic Park as the park's doomed, duplicitous computer programmer Dennis Nedry, but the precise reason for Steven Spielberg hiring him was bizarre to say the least.
Spielberg contacted Knight's agent after seeing him in Basic Instinct released the year prior, and honed in on one specific aspect of his performance - his sweating.
Knight plays cop John Correli during Basic Instinct's infamous leg-crossing interrogation scene, with Knight spending the scene getting sweatier and clammier as femme fatale Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) uses her sexual wiles to intimidate him.
Knight was told by his agent that Spielberg saw this scene and said, "I see him in close-ups, sweating, only instead of open legs, it's a dinosaur."
And so a fantastic movie character was born, perspiration and all.