Sam Neill, known for roles in Jurassic Park and The Piano, dead at 78

Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in Jurassic Park to playing Holly Hunter’s husband in The Piano, has died. He was 78.In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death was not specified.“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his family wrote.Neil was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, a list that includes Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy Sweet Revenge to chopping off Hunter’s finger in The Piano to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror Event Horizon.In Omen III: The Final Conflict, he played Damien the Antichrist and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors.Sam Neill as palaeontologist Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Photo: Universal PicturesThe actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film My Brilliant Career, which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm, a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s Plenty and – again for Schepisi – in A Cry in the Dark, a film about the sensationalised aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback. He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries Merlin and another as narrator of 2017’s Wild New Zealand.But perhaps he achieved his highest level of fame in Jurassic Park playing palaeontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but did not return for The Lost World: Jurassic Park II in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and Jurassic World: Dominion in 2022.Further ReadingBorn in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island and he was sent to boarding school in Christchurch. After college, he took the lead in Sleeping Dogs in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.Neill’s other film roles included playing a Soviet submarine officer who memorably dreams of a home in Montana in The Hunt for Red October and an investigator in director John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness.Sam Neill promoting his wines in Hong Kong in 2012. Photo: Nora TamOn the small screen, Neill played the malign Chester Campbell in TV’s Peaky Blinders and Thomas Jefferson in the four-hour CBS miniseries, Sally Hemings: An American Tragedy. On Apple TV+, he was on Invasion, playing Oklahoma Sheriff John Bell Tyson, a man late in his career searching for his purpose. In 2024 he starred opposite Annette Bening in the Peacock series Apples Never Fall.Following the news of his death, regional leaders paid tribute to his monumental legacy. New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Neill was “one of the greats”.“For more than 50 years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today – one of our greatest cultural exports,” Luxon said in a statement, adding: “His work will be watched and loved long after all of us”.Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Neill held a “special place in Australian hearts”.“Wry and dry, thoughtful and laconic, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour and conviction that gave strength to his every performance,” Albanese said. “He will be much mourned and long remembered.”Neill was also a vintner and under his Two Paddocks brand, he produced pinot noir and riesling wines from his winery in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.He is survived by four children and eight grandchildren.Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse