Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor known for his roles in 'Jurassic Park,' 'The Piano' and 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' has died. He was 78.
Actor Sam Neill poses at the premiere of “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 22, 2016, in Park City, Utah.
Actor Sam Neill, known for his role as Dr. Alan Grant in the “Jurassic Park” movies as well as his range — beyond that blockbuster series he excelled on indie and horror sets as well as the small screen — died on Sunday. He was 78.in April that after five years of living with cancer he was in remission due to a new cancer therapy. Neill had angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare and aggressive type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
He used his remission to promote CAR T-cell therapy, which genetically alters one’s cells to fight cancer, after he said chemotherapy stopped working. He died in Sydney, Australia. While promoting his memoir, “Did I Ever Tell You This? ”, in 2023, in which he divulges more about his battle with cancer, he toldwhile on his New Zealand farm that he wasn’t afraid to die, but doing so would annoy him.
“Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big.
” Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. He was born Nigel Neill, but told interviewers he started to go by Sam because there were too many Nigels at his school. After college, he took the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.
He’d go on to play a Soviet submarine officer in “The Hunt for Red October,” Holly Hunter’s husband in “The Piano,” and co-star twice with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback. Throughout his career, he appeared in more than 150 productions.
But his highest level of fame came from playing a thoughtful paleontologist summoned to an island of cloned dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” in 1993. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough. Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t 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.
“It’s probably a little late to learn these things,” he told the Daily New of New York in 2001, “but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing. ”Brittany Levine Beckman is the entertainment and features editor at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she worked as managing editor at Mashable.
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