Sam Neill, the Kiwi actor who cemented his place in Hollywood history playing Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park franchise, died Monday. He was 78.
In a film, television and theater career spanning six decades, Neill played several characters outside of Dr. Grant, for which he is most widely known for. After a rich career in New Zealand and Australia, including lead roles in antipodeaon cinema classics such as Sleeping Dogs (1977) and My Brilliant Career (1979), Neill became an international talent on the rise in Andrzej Żuławski’s cult film Possession (1981). The 1980s and 1990s saw Neill cement his place among the top male actors, starring in Philip Noyce’s Dead Calm (1989), John McTiernan’s The Hunt for Red October (1990), Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993), John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1995) and Paul Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997). Though his output slowed in his later years, Neill still gave a memorable turn in Taika Waititi’s 2016 comedy classic Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Though more closely associated with film, Neill also made a significant impact on television, starring in enduring shows like Reilly, Ace of Spies, the fantasy series Merlin, The Tudors, Alcatraz, and a memorable role in Peaky Blinders and most recently Netflix’s Untamed.
Below, The Hollywood Reporter has compiled some of Neill’s most memorable big (and small) screen roles.
Jurassic Park (1993)
The original ‘Jurassic Park’ was shot in Kauai.
Courtesy of Getty
Any list reflecting on the career of Sam Neill will have to begin with his iconic performance as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. The story goes that given the expense of the ground-breaking CGI used in the film, producers were looking to hire a relatively unknown (to summer blockbuster audiences, that is) actor for the role of Grant, with Neill winning the part. Playing Grant, arguably, was not much of a stretch for Neill who made his name playing complex characters in arthouse cinema, but he nailed Grant’s outward stiff academic countenance and how that man would deal with the frightening ordeal of being chased by raptors (his life’s work, lest we forget!).
Neill would play Grant two more times on screen in the Jurassic Park franchise. In 2001’s Jurassic Park III, Grant returns as something of a man haunted by raptors (Alan!) and he also played the character in a supporting role in 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion.
Event Horizon (1997)
Paramount Pictures/Photofest
Paul Anderson has given the world some instantly forgetable genre films, but the British filmmaker did manage helm a sci-fi horror classic in Event Horizon, and a large part of that movie’s cult status is owed to Sam Neill. In the film, set in 2047, a grizzled crew is sent to find a missing spaceship in the orbit around Neptune. Neill plays Dr. William G. “Billy” Weir, designer of the missing ship, named the Event Horizon. We won’t give too much away, but suffice to say, Neill provides several of the film’s standout moments, including a horrifying moment involving his eyes, as well as the now-famed explaination of wormholes using a piece of paper and a pen. A similar on screen explaination of wormholes appears in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Neill had a supporting role in John McTiernan’s Cold War move The Hunt for Red October, playing Captain 2nd rank Vasily Borodin on the rogue Soviet nuclear submarine the Red October. In a stellar cast that included Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Joss Ackland, Tim Curry, Stellan Skarsgård, Courtney B. Vance and Fred Thompson, Neill stood out for playing Borodin as cool, calm and collected in the face of potentially deadly consequences.
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
Sleeping Dogs, the film that launched Neill’s career, was also the first feature-length movie shot on 35mm produced entirely in New Zealand. Roger Donaldson’s action thriller, that takes place in an imaginary New Zealand suffering civil unrest, has a litany of reasons for why it is one of the most important Kiwi films ever made, but Neill’s performance as the rebellious Smith, who fights back against fascist forces looking to take over his country, earned rave notices from critics, including Janet Maslin in the New York Times.
My Brilliant Career (1979)
Neill crossed the Tasman Sea to star in Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career, a movie that has become a foundational film in Aussie cinema history, and a key film in feminist cinema as well. The film is an adaptation of Miles Franklin’s classic novel and is set in 1890s Australia, with Neill playing the male lead, Harry Beecham, opposite Judy Davis as Sybylla Melvyn. Both Davis and Neill earned strong notices for their performances, and Davis would go on to win a BAFTA for best actress.
Possession (1981)
Neill starred in Andrzej Żuławski’s controversial psychological horror film Possession opposite Isabelle Adjani. The now cult film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, was a box office failure and was banned in the U.K. for harmful content as well as released in the U.S. two years later following heavy editing. Possession tells the story of a spy (Neill) and his increasingly fraught relationship with his wife (Adjani) who wants a divorce after having an affair. Not a particularly easy watch, to say the least, the complexly plotted film leans into the madness, and intense brutality experienced by the characters.
Dead Calm (1989)
Neill had more success in Aussie cinema with Phillip Noyce’s excellent psychological thriller Dead Calm, that was produced by Mad Max’s George Miller. The film was an adaptation of Charles Williams’ novel of the same name and starred Neill and Nicole Kidman as a married couple sailing off the Australian coast trying to forget the tragic death of their son. The couple encounter a man (Billy Zane) drifting out to sea, and attempt to help him, only to realize too late that he’s mad as a cut snake. The film was a huge critical success and won a number of awards in Australia.
Peaky Blinders (2013-2014)
On television, most modern audiences will recognize Neill for his blistering performance as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell is a fictional character in the immensely popular BBC/Netflix crime drama Peaky Blinders. Campbell is the chief antagonist of the first two seasons of the show, and is a man who made his name brutally putting down the Irish Republican Army in Belfast before being sent to Birmingham to take on Tommy Shelby and the organized crime gangs. As he has countless times, Neill zeroes in on the complexity of Campbell, capturing both his psychotic and righteous nature. Although Neill’s family history traces back to Northern Ireland, he has said in interviews he found the Northern Irish accent difficult to master, and relied on his friends Liam Neeson and Jimmy Nesbitt to perfect it.
