New hotness Jonathan Bailey fulfills lifelong band nerd dream for Jurassic World Rebirth

Jonathan Bailey, who catapulted to fame in Bridgerton, wooed musical theater fans everywhere in 2024’s Wicked and this June checks a prerequisite heartthrob box of playing a nerdy paleontologist in Jurassic World Rebirth, will only earn more nerd cred with the release of a new behind-the-scenes look at his dino sequel. Loyalists and skeptics will likely melt over the just-like-us dorkiness on display in the video titled “Jonathan Bailey Joins the Orchestra,” in which Jonathan Bailey does indeed join the Jurassic World Rebirth orchestra, conducted by two-time Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat.

“I played in an orchestra when I was 18,” Bailey says in the behind-the-scenes video, and making it sound deeply cool that he played in an orchestra when he was 18 despite there being no chance of that being cool whatsoever. “If you could have told me at that age that one day there was an opportunity to play with a 105-piece orchestra at Abbey Road with Alexandre Desplat conducting both the John Williams score and his own original score, I would not quite believe it.”

What could have been a cheap stunt to create a moment of connection between a hot new talent and the 32-year-old score motif Williams’ cooked up for Steven Spielberg’s original film is, unfortunately, packed with clips of Bailey wailing on the clarinet and even picking up a solo from Desplat. Yes, it’s all staged and rigged so Bailey doesn’t look like total poseur but there are certain techniques you can’t fake — I could never blow through a reed the right way in order to actually play a clarinet and so I feel deeply triggered by this video.

As if the 37-year-old actor wasn’t enviable in every way — a movie star who dreams of joining the woodwind section??? — he ends on this note.

“The only thing I would say to young kids is: Find something you love and keep going because you never know when it all comes into alignment like that.”

Folks, he’s running.

Jurassic World Rebirth opens in theaters on July 2.