With an impressive array of films in all genres it is perhaps Jurassic Park that Sam Neill is perhaps best known ( that meme of him taking off his shades in awe of the first dinosaur he sees is an internet favourite) but the breadth of his films showed that he an impressive range.
Nigel Neill aka Sam Neill
Born Nigel Neill on 14th September 1947 in Omagh, Northern Ireland he moved to New Zealand with his family when he was a child. Attending school in Christchurch he had what he called a’ catastrophic’ year studying law and subsequently moved to Wellington to study acting at Canterbury University having already changed his name to Sam when he was 12 years of age arguing that no one wanted to be known as Nigel Neill. He made his debut in 1971’s ‘The City of No’ but it was his role in 1977’s ‘Sleeping Dogs’ that caught the eye and saw the film get international distribution – a first for new Zealand’s film industry. Shortly afterwards he moved to Australia appearing in soap opera The Sullivan’s as well as the well regarded film ‘My Brilliant Career’.
His recognition saw him cast in his first Hollywood film ‘The Final Conflict’ (1981) the final part of the The Omen trilogy that saw him as Damien the Antichrist now an adult. Though the weakest of the trilogy it saw follow him work constantly throughout the 1980’s in well regarded TV series ‘Reilly : Ace of Spies’ ( for which he was nominated for a Godden Globe) , appearing opposite Meryl Streep in ‘Plenty’ and ‘A Cry in the Dark’ and then thriller Dead Calm with Nicole Kidman. So well regarded was he that in 1986 he even screen tested to play James Bond after Roger Moore left.
Title recognition…
!991 saw Sam Neill appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to acting. But he really became known to every audience with two 1993 films – the Oscar winning The Piano and the blockbuster Jurassic Park. Able to play both villains, charming romantic leads and pretty much everything in between it saw him appear in films as diverse as the sci-fi horror Event Horizon, the mawkish Bicentennial Man (with Robin Williams) a TV version of Doctor Zhivago, TV favourite Peaky Blinders and comedy ‘Hunt for the Wildepeople’ for director Taika Waititi who would cast him in cameos for his bigger blockbusters Thor Ragnorok and Thor Love and Thunder.
2007 saw Sam Neill made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Later in 2022 he accepted a Knighthood after changes to New Zealand’s honours system allowed recipients to adopt such honours. But that same year he was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer and began treatment details of which he revealed the following year in his memoir ‘Did I ever tell you this? by which time the cancer was in remission although he would undergo chemotherapy for the years up until his death.
Private life…
His private life was by his own admission “somewhat haphazard”. He had four children. The first being in his early twenties where he had a son that he gave up for adoption but reunited with in 1994. He had a son with actress Lisa Harrow, a daughter with make up artist Moriko Watanbe who herself had a daughter from her first marriage that Neill adopted.
In later life Neill bought and lived on a winery in Otago, New Zealand which he admitted to being both expensive and time consuming but loved and kept several animals there that he named after co-stars and colleagues.
Despite the cancer and chemotherapy he said that he was not afraid of dying and on 13th July 2026 he passed away aged 78.
related feature : Hunt for the Wildepeople- REVIEW
related feature : Taika Waititi at the ‘Thor : Love & Thunder’ UK premiere and answers the question, ‘How gay is Thor?
