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Sam Neill: actor, husband and father. A movie star, certainly, but also a distinguished actor who never chose a role for its sparkle, and preferred the clever writing of obscure masterpieces to big-ticket blockbuster movies.
A winemaker too, he was, and perhaps the most charming man you could ever meet. Whatever all of that adds up to, Neill, who has died aged 78, was certainly an unlikely Hollywood star.
Fame came to the Northern Ireland-born New Zealand transplant somewhat unexpectedly: television roles on The Sullivans and the miniseries Lucinda Brayford, and the film My Brilliant Career, led to the American horror film Omen III: The Final Conflict, in which this most charming of exports was called upon to play the antichrist. It was, as you might say in the acting world, quite a leap.
By 1983, on television, he was Reilly, Ace of Spies, a role which put him into contention for a gig as James Bond, when the search to replace Roger Moore in the mid-1980s was under way. And by the late 1980s, Dead Calm put him firmly on the Hollywood map: a leading man with a complex edge that exploited his extraordinary range: from heroic, to sinister, sometimes in the same role.
What all of that reveals is a man who was a most unlikely arrival in the money and fame factory of Hollywood, one whose ambition was likely a combination of his own dreams, and the professional momentum of big screen success and the fact that every actor’s non-negotiable final destination was Los Angeles.
The most striking thing about Neill, when you met him, was a lack of vanity. In that sense, he was almost without a full understanding of either his success, or the effect it had when he entered a room.
When I first met him, I found him genuinely intimidating, largely because his performance as Damien Thorn in The Final Conflict had been the wallpaper of my horror movie nightmares for a decade as a child. When I told him that, he was amused, but also slightly appalled. And perhaps, to his credit, he put in a sterling effort to rebrand himself in my eyes.
In conversation, he was supremely charismatic, with a piercing gaze. Handsome, of course, but not in a Hollywood way. The kind of man you met, and fell in love with, before you’d even put down the menu.
There were set visits, where he would greet you open-armed with a disarming smile. A long and memorable lunch with him and the late (and sometimes terrifying) actor Wendy Hughes. A man who was far more at ease when the tape recorder was off, than when it was on the table and running.
Occasionally, too, there were conversational jousts. Neill was not a man afraid to share his opinion, especially if he disagreed with you. And these were conversations you took seriously. As a thinker, he was cautious and considered. And an aside, or an email, was never lightly delivered.
One memorable clash: I called the television miniseries House of Hancock camp. He disagreed, firmly. We agreed to disagree, and shook hands. Or maybe we didn’t. But when I saw him again, he smiled that smile. And I knew we were OK.
Of course, the film they will etch into the top of his epitaph in Hollywood is Jurassic Park, the Steven Spielberg science factish-meets-science fiction blockbuster in which he played the likeable, easy-going palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant.
Neill famously got the role because another unlikely Hollywood star Harrison Ford turned it own. But Neill delivered a luminous performance, which exploited his gentle presence and naturally friendly manner, and it was his confirmation as an old-school movie star.
However, in truth the wider work of Sam Neill is perhaps even more compelling. Smaller and more obscure roles, in rich and complex films that leave behind a tapestry of artistic work that would be the envy of the world’s finest actors. Death in Brunswick, In the Mouth of Madness, Children of the Revolution, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and, of course, The Dish, one of the most tenderly assembled, beloved films in the Australian film canon.
Writing in his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, Neill put things in perspective: “If I’ve made a film that turns out to be good, that’s a good result. If I’ve made a film that’s good and made a couple of friends, that’s a great result. If I’ve made a film that’s no good, but I made a friend, that’s still another great result.”
What will ultimately define him is that despite the unfurling of Hollywood’s red carpet, he created for himself a brilliant career based on better choices, and more personally meaningful opportunities. On his days off, he crafted fine wine like he crafted fine characters. Memorable. Flavourful. Full of body and complex notes.
Depending on your age, and appetite, what you remember best might be Alan Grant’s widening eyes when he sees the towering brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park, John Trent’s haunting laughter that turns into tears in In the Mouth of Madness, or Hec reading his haiku to Ricky – Me and this fat kid / We ran we ate and read books / And it was the best – in Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
And with such a body of work, captured forever on celluloid, Neill is gifted with something rare and extraordinary; a kind of immortality that will leave the projector running long after he has left the room, holding those beloved images captive for all time.
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