It’s amazing how watching a movie can cause you to take note of an actor for the first time and forever associate them with that movie. Such is the case for me with Laura Dern and Jurassic Park. While Jurassic Park was nowhere near Dern’s first film, because I loved it so much when it first came out, and because I was only just beginning to pay attention to the actors in the movies I watched, it was the first time I took note of her. Laura Dern is the daughter of actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, and she made her film debut in a cameo in her mother’s film White Lightning. The mid-1980s saw Dern garner much recognition for her roles in films such as Mask and Blue Velvet, and she would go on to collaborate with Blue Velvet director David Lynch twice more – in Wild at Heart and Inland Empire. Laura Dern has also appeared in such films as Novocaine, Dr T and the Women, I Am Sam, Year of the Dog, and The Master, and she has acted on such TV shows as Frasier, Ellen, The West Wing, and Enlightened. But when I think of Laura Dern, I’ll always think of Ellie Satler from Jurassic Park (and Jurassic Park III) first and foremost. Laura Dern turns 46 today.