Sam Neill, the affable and adventurous leading man who came out of New Zealand to make his mark in films like… Jurassic Park, Piano, Dead calm, In the mouth of madness And much more, Matt. He was 78 years old.
The news was shared in a post on Neil’s official Instagram account.
“It is with great sadness that Wano Sam Neil announces the news of his death on Monday, July 13, in Sydney, Australia,” the post read. “Sam was surrounded by his family and died with the dignity that defined his entire life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but we are blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St. Vincent’s Private Hospital for their wonderful care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they deal with this priceless loss.”
Neil revealed in March 2023 that he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma a year earlier.
“I’m not afraid of death in any way. It doesn’t worry me. It never worried me from the beginning,” he told a television news magazine. Australian story In October 2023. “But I would be upset, because there are things I still want to do.”
Early in his career, Neil starred in the film Breaking Boundaries Sleeping dogs (1977), one of the first New Zealand films to be shown internationally; In Australian period drama My wonderful career (1979), opposite Judy Davis; And as Damian in III omen film, Final conflict (1981), filmed in the United Kingdom
Neil also played a Russian officer in John McTiernan’s film The Search for Red October (1990); Captain of a doomed spaceship in Paul W. S. Anderson Event horizon (1997); Father of Scarlett Johansson’s character in Robert Redford’s film The whispering horse (1998); The head of a family has a robot (Robin Williams) in the movie Chris Columbus. Bicentennial Man (1999).
On television, he portrayed a real-life spy in the 1983 ITV series Reilly: Ace of Spies; Sorcerer King Arthur Merlin in the Hallmark miniseries that aired in 1998 and 2006; Cardinal Thomas Wolsey on Showtime The Tudors In 2007; Corrupt police inspector Chester Campbell on BBC Peaky Blinders In the 2013-2014 season; And the husband whose wife disappeared in the peacock Apples never fall In 2024.
After starring alongside Nicole Kidman and Billy Zane in the psychological thriller Dead calm (1989), directed by Australian Philip Noyce, Neil had a great time in 1993 with the role of cynical paleontologist Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s film. Jurassic Park And like the cold, cruel frontiersman, Alisdair Stewart PianoDirected by New Zealand director Jane Campion.
And in John Carpenter In the mouth of madness (1994) – one of many horror films – Neal played insurance man John Trent, whose investigation leads him to a mental institution.
The versatile Neil portrayed heroes and villains with equal aplomb, dazzled in art houses and tentpoles alike and had a knack for exploring shades of gray in his characters. He once said: “I like to think that I am able to suggest mystery and complexities in the people I play with, because I believe that each of us has hidden sides or contradictory qualities.”
Nigel John Dermot Neill was born on September 14, 1947, at the kitchen table in the family home in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, where his father Dermot, a third-generation New Zealander, was stationed with the Royal Irish Infantry Regiment as a member of the British Army. His mother, Priscilla, was English.
In 1955 they moved to New Zealand, where his family was in the wine and spirits business, and he attended boarding school at Medbury School and Christ’s College in Christchurch. He began calling himself Sam – he loved the West, and wrote in his 2023 memoir: “Western people called things like Sam,” he wrote in his 2023 memoir. Have I told you this before? – He suffered from a stuttering problem.
He became interested in acting while attending the University of Canterbury, then obtained a degree in English Literature from the University of Victoria. After graduating, Neil toured for a year writing Shakespeare with the Players’ Drama Quartet and spent six years as a director of short films and documentaries with the New Zealand National Film Unit.
“The informal agreement was that you would make one film for the post office or the railroad or the banana company and you would make one for yourself,” he said in a 2009 interview. “I wanted to make a film about skiing – I love skiing – but I had to perfect it and say it would be really good for tourism.”
Neil has also done some acting, after which he was seen playing the role of a priest in the short film ash (1975), he was cast in the title role as a man on the run from the totalitarian government in Sleeping dogs (1977) Directed by Roger Donaldson. This thriller, the first color film produced in New Zealand, helped launch the “cinema of anxiety” movement in the country.
He said he fell in love with Australia while portraying Davis’ complex love interest, Gillian Armstrong My wonderful career (1979), which was shown in competition at Cannes, and made him realize that he could make a living doing what he loved to do. Around this time, he also reprized the role of Ben Dawson in the Nine Network period television series sullivan.
Recommended by James Mason, Neal should play Damien – the Antichrist who is now an adult American ambassador – in Final conflict. Two years later, he became the intrepid Russian adventurer turned British secret agent Sidney Reilly Reilly: Ace of Spiesand received a Golden Globe Award nomination for it.
He would become a favorite in Sweden after playing villain Brian de Bois Gilbert in a 1982 TV series adaptation. Ivanhoe It is broadcast on New Year’s Day every year in the country, and he then starred alongside Meryl Streep for Australian director Fred Schepisi in a lot (1985) and Evil angels (1988), the latter about one of the most controversial legal cases in Australian history.
Neil auditioned for James Bond in Living daylights (1987) But he didn’t really want the role, he explained in a 2021 interview.
“I felt so embarrassed all that day when we made that thing. It just kept going on and on and on,” he said. “I’m so relieved they offered it to someone else. You really don’t want to be the Bond that no one likes. That’s a fate worse than death.” (Timothy Dalton will play 007 for the first time in this film.)
Neil described Dr. Grant in a 2001 interview as a man with “an enormous duality. He knows that Jurassic Park is a terrible place and he knows that there is nothing more dangerous than dinosaurs that are not behind bars. But because he lives and breathes dinosaurs, he finds them utterly compelling.”
He will return as Grant in Joe Johnston’s film Jurassic World III (2001) and Colin Trevorrow Take control of Jurassic World (2022).
He wrote this in his diary Pianowinner of the Palme d’Or and three Oscars, was a “lonely” work because Holly Hunter, who portrayed Ada, the wife his character abuses, “was necessarily distant” (not surprising since Alisdair cuts off her finger in the film). “Luckily, Jane is a director who cares deeply about her cast and was always there to give me a hug when I was at my lowest,” he added.
Neil also did a lot of work (2002 Dirty deeds2008 Dean Spanleytelevision Old schooletc.) along with his “brother from another mother”, Australian actor Brian Brown.
His biography is also included In the movie Own (1981), Death in Brunswick (1990), carpenter Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Country life (1994), restoration (1995), Snow White: A Horror Story (1997), The dish (2000), Zoo keeper (2001), Perfect strangers (2003), leather (2008), Day breakers (2009), The hunter (2011), Taika Waititi Hunt the Wilderpeople (2016) and as a theater actor playing the role of Odin, Thor Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
In 1983, Neil bought some land in New Zealand’s Central Otago — this was “always my dream land; this was where we came for holidays when I was a kid,” he said in 2020 — and launched his Two Paddocks Vineyard.
“I don’t expect people to take me seriously, but I’m determined that they respect my wines,” he said. London Times “In 2014. “A few weeks ago, she won a trophy and two gold medals in London. I call that the “elevate yourself” factor.
He has also been a comforting and entertaining presence during the pandemic, when he posted videos of himself singing and playing the ukulele on Twitter.
Survivors include his children, Andrew, Tim and Elena, and six grandchildren.
After a long relationship with New Zealand actress Lisa Harrow (they met in the Final conflict), was married to Japanese makeup artist Noriko Watanabe (they met in Dead calm) from 1989 until their divorce in 2017. More recently, he dated Laura Tingle, a political journalist for the Australian network ABC.
In 2022 writer for Sydney Morning Telegraph He noted that Neil is the least “celebrity” celebrity ever.
“I hope I’m not a celebrity because… I think they’re two different jobs,” he said. “You can be an actor – and hopefully a very good one – but being a celebrity is another job, and that’s a job you can sign up for or not. And I never signed up for that. I avoided it like the plague.”
“Winemaking is exactly half my life, and it’s been very rewarding, and it’s very different from anything else I do. I’m kind of…half farmer, half grower, if you like.”
