Ariana Richards: From Jurassic Park Child Star to Acclaimed Artist—and Her Unexpected Return to Acting
For millions of moviegoers, Ariana Richards will forever be the terrified but resourceful teenager running from dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park.
She was only 13 when the movie arrived in theaters in 1993 and transformed her into one of the most recognizable young actors of the decade. As Lex Murphy, the granddaughter of Jurassic Park creator John Hammond, Richards became part of several sequences that remain instantly recognizable more than three decades later.
There was Lex trembling as a spoonful of gelatin revealed that something enormous was approaching. There was the terrifying kitchen encounter with the velociraptors. And there was Lex using her computer skills to help restore the park's systems at a crucial moment.
Yet Richards ultimately chose a life very different from the Hollywood trajectory that seemed to be waiting for her.
Rather than spend adulthood pursuing increasingly prominent movie roles, she gradually stepped away from acting and devoted herself to another passion that had been present since childhood: painting.
More than three decades after Jurassic Park, however, the worlds of Ariana Richards the actress and Ariana Richards the artist have never completely separated.
Her connection to the franchise has endured. Her friendships with people associated with the original movie continued. And in 2026, after more than a decade without an acting role, Richards unexpectedly returned to performance in an atmospheric horror project with a charitable purpose.
Her journey is an unusual Hollywood story—not about chasing fame, but about knowing when to pursue a different kind of creative life.
PART ONE — THE 13-YEAR-OLD WHO SURVIVED JURASSIC PARK
Acting Before the Dinosaurs Arrived
Although Jurassic Park made Ariana Richards internationally famous, it was not the beginning of her career.
Born in California in 1979, Richards started working as a child and accumulated television and film credits before Steven Spielberg's dinosaurs entered her life.
One of her best-known pre-Jurassic Park appearances came in the 1990 creature feature Tremors, in which she played Mindy Sterngood. The movie, starring Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward, eventually developed a substantial cult following.
Richards also appeared in television productions and won recognition for her work as a young performer. Her career was already developing rapidly when she received the opportunity that would permanently attach her name to cinema history.
Steven Spielberg was preparing an adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel Jurassic Park.
Richards was cast as Lex Murphy.
Everything changed.
Becoming Lex Murphy
When Jurassic Park opened in 1993, Richards was 13.
Spielberg's movie was not simply successful. It became a cultural phenomenon.
The film combined adventure, horror, science fiction and groundbreaking visual effects in a way audiences had rarely experienced. Its dinosaurs seemed startlingly real, thanks to the combination of Industrial Light & Magic's digital effects and Stan Winston's practical animatronics.
At the center of the chaos were two children: Lex Murphy and her younger brother Tim, played by Joseph Mazzello.
The children were not passive spectators.
They were placed directly in the path of some of the film's greatest threats.
Lex and Tim survive the famous Tyrannosaurus rex attack after the park's security systems fail. They encounter dinosaurs outside the safety of the tour vehicles. They climb electrified fences. And eventually, they find themselves trapped inside a kitchen while velociraptors stalk them.
For Richards, those scenes created images that generations of viewers would remember.
But Lex also contributed something essential to the group's survival.
When the survivors reach the control room, her computer knowledge becomes critically important. Lex recognizes the system and helps restore security, buying the group precious time.
The moment made her something relatively unusual in a major early-1990s blockbuster: a young female character whose technical ability actually helps save everyone around her.
Painting Between Takes
Something else was happening behind the scenes.
Richards was painting.
Her interest in art did not suddenly appear after she left Hollywood. It existed alongside her acting career.
According to biographical information associated with her career, Richards painted during breaks from filming Jurassic Park. One watercolor depicted herself and Joseph Mazzello with a Brachiosaurus. She reportedly gave the work to Spielberg, who had it framed.
She also created artwork inspired by the film's famous kitchen sequence.
The detail seems almost symbolic in retrospect.
While audiences were discovering Ariana Richards the movie star, Richards herself was already developing the passion that would eventually become the center of her professional life.
She continued acting after Jurassic Park, including returning briefly as Lex in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
But Hollywood was no longer her only possible future.