‘Jurassic Park’ star, Sam Neill dies

Sam Neill, best known for his role in “Jurassic Park,” has died at the age of 78.

His death was announced via a statement on his social media page which said his death was “sudden and unexpected” but that he had “remained cancer free” at the time of his death, The Associated Press reported. He died in Sydney, Australia.

The cause of death was not released but the statement said that he was surrounded by family and “passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life.”

Neill had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, or a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but shared in April that he was cancer free, CNN reported.

While best known as Dr. Alan Grant in the “Jurassic Park” series, he had an acting career that spanned five decades, according to IMDB.

One of his final roles will be in the upcoming “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova,” which is in post-production and will be released next year, per IMDB.

The AP noted that Neill was among the slate of actors who came out of Australia in the 1970s including Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush and Russell Crowe.

Neill’s roles ran the gamut from comedies such as the film “Sweet Revenge” opposite Helena Bonham Carter to “The Piano,” in which he chopped off Holly Hunter’s finger, and finally sci-fi horror “Event Horizon” where he poked out his own eyes.

He played Damien the Antichrist in “Omen III: The Final Conflict” and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tutors.”

The New York Times said Neill had a “a credible Everyman quality with rugged good looks and a hard-to-place accent.”

While never being nominated for an Oscar, he was nominated twice for Emmy Awards, once for playing Merlin in the television miniseries of the same name and as a narrator for “New Zealand: Earth’s Mythical Islands.” Neill was also nominated three times for Golden Globes.

He told CNN during the 30th anniversary of “Jurassic Park” “It’s been a very happy, surprising life,” adding “I never expected to have a career in film at all, or even as an actor. But it kind of happened, and no one’s more surprised than me.”

He told The Dominion Post in 2007, “I’d like to think I’m able to suggest ambiguities and complexities in the people I play, because I think all of us have hidden aspects or contradictory qualities. I think that’s what makes us interesting as human beings, and that’s what makes human beings interesting to play,” the Times reported.

He also said he never had a plan for his career.

“I never had a map, you know,” he told The Dominion Post in 2016, according to the Times. “There was no one else here that I knew of that had ever had a screen career.”

He was remembered by Karl Urban, as “an inspiration for many who followed his trailblazing footsteps. A beautiful man, a national treasure who gave so much to New Zealand and to the world.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese released a statement on social media upon Neill’s death saying that he “starred in so many beloved Australian stories” and “earned 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 wrote.

While from New Zealand, Neill was actually born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Northern Ireland in 1947 and immigrated to the island nation when he was 7, CNN reported.

He attended Cashmere Primary School and eventually boarding school at Medbury School and Christ’s College in Christchurch, where he said he was a “very ordinary student” who was “irredeemably lazy,” and only appeared in a few school productions.

Neill also had several challenges while in school from stuttering and having what the Times said was “an embarrassingly grand British accent” along with the name Nigel".

“To land in a pretty rough playground in a New Zealand primary school with a plum in the voice and Nigel for a name was asking for trouble,” he said. He took the name Sam when he was 11, taking it from Westerns, and was “probably the best decision I made in my life. Sam is easy to say, sounds friendly, sounds a bit blokey and has a touch of the Labrador about it.”

He started acing after attending the University of Canterbury, then transferring to the University of Victoria in Wellington, earning a bachelor’s degree in English literature in 1970. He first worked with the Downstage Theater Company, earning 35 New Zealand dollars a week and a nightly meal of lasagna, then traveling with the New Zealand Players Drama Quartet, performing Shakespeare and other shows for children.

He eventually joined the New Zealand’s National Film Unit, directing several documentary shorts. He also appeared in the 1975 short “Ashes” and was the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977.

When not acting he spent much of his time on his farm, naming many of the animals he raised after Hollywood icon.

“I love to name as many of my animals as possible after my friends,” he shared with Vulture. “It doesn’t always end well. Meryl Streep was killed by a ferret recently. I found her as a pile of feathers one day.”

He frequently shared his exploits of his animals on his Instagram account.

Neill also started his own winery, Two Paddocks.

“I wanted to produce a good pinot noir that would, at the very least, be enjoyed by my family and friends. Frankly, my friends will pretty much drink anything, so this didn’t seem too hard,” the winery’s history said. He released his first vintage in 1997.

He was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 and was given a knighthood from New Zealand in 2022, the same year he wrote his memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?”.

Neill had a unique way of looking at his death, saying he wasn’t afraid, but that it would be “very irritating.”

“I’m not in any way frightened of dying,” Neill told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2024, according to CNN. “I’d be annoyed because there are things I still want to do. Very irritating, dying, but I’m not afraid of it.”

Neill leaves behind four children and several grandchildren.

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