'Jurassic World Dominion' star Isabelle Sermon didn't expect Maisie to come back

It wouldn't be a Jurassic movie without some child endangerment. Little Maisie Lockwood, the granddaughter of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), is a dinosaur enthusiast who bonds with Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. At the end of that film, though, we learn that Maisie is actually a clone, too. Jurassic World Dominion picks up her story now as a teen, having been official orphaned and now living as Owen and Claire's adopted daughter. In an effort to protect her from outside entities that want to study her, Owen and Claire keep Maisie away from the masses in an isolated, rural cabin — a setup that isn't exactly working for the precocious and brilliant kid. 

As the writer, or co-writer, of all three Jurassic World films, Colin Trevorrow is literally the architect of Maisie Lockwood's story. Sermon beat out thousands of other kids to win the role in Fallen Kingdom, but she never expected Maisie's story to continue past that film. Sermon tells SYFY WIRE that she found out that Maisie would play a big part in the last movie when Trevorrow gave her a private walkthrough of the storyline. "Before we started filming, I met with Colin and he laid out the story of the whole film," she explains. "It was really funny for me, because I remember listening to it all and it felt like I was actually like watching the film. I was like, 'Oh my gosh, no way this happens to this character! No way this happens for that character!'"

As Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion are the only two movies on Sermon's resume, the actress says she didn't have any expectations about where Maisie arc would go in this sequel but she was really happy with how relatable it ended up being for her to understand, and play. 

"Something that was really important for me when creating Maisie, especially for Dominion, was that even though she is a clone and her life gets completely turned around in this film, she finds out so much information," the actress details. "Not only is she this clone, but she's also a teenager. She's trying to figure out her place in the world. She's trying to grow up and become a young woman and become an adult. And that was something that I'm really happy that Colin and Emily (Carmichael) put into the film because I feel like that's definitely a key part of her character. She's not just a science experiment. She's a human."

Jurassic World Dominion is playing exclusively in theaters now.