Sam Neill

Nigel John Dermot Neill was born in Omagh on 14 September 1947, the son of English mother Priscilla Beatrice (née Ingham) and New Zealand father Dermot Neill. Consequently, he has three documented nationalities for New Zealand, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. His great-grandfather Percival "Percy" Neill had left Belfast for Australia, joining a firm of merchants in Melbourne. Four years later, in 1863, he moved to New Zealand and settled in Dunedin. He was the son of a wine merchant who imported wine from France. At the time of Neill's birth, his father was stationed in Northern Ireland, serving as an officer with the Royal Irish Fusiliers. His father's family owned Neill and Co. (later part of the listed hospitality group Wilson Neill). In 1954, the Neill family moved to New Zealand and settled in the Cashmere suburb of Christchurch. He attended Cashmere Primary School and Medbury School, a private prep school. After a year, his parents and younger sister Juliet moved south to his father's home city of Dunedin. They lived at Macandrew Bay, where the children could roam free in the holidays. He first took to calling himself "Sam" at school because there were several other students named Nigel, and because he felt the name Nigel was "a little effete for ... a New Zealand playground". From 1961, he attended the Anglican boys' boarding and day secondary school Christ's College in Christchurch. Neill was in several plays, such as playing Theseus in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Ngaio Marsh for the Canterbury University Drama Society. He acted in a production of Marat/Sade'' by Mervyn Thompson, and when another actor dropped out of a Wellington season, Neill replaced him as Jacques Roux. The play was staged at Downstage Theatre. He had "the time of [his] life" and saw that the arts and drama were "part of the fabric of the city" unlike in Christchurch or Dunedin. He transferred from Canterbury to Victoria University of Wellington to finish his Bachelor of Arts with a philosophy unit, and passed the "logic" paper with some last-minute coaching by John Clarke. Neill played Macbeth in a university production directed by Phillip Mann, then joined Downstage as a professional paid actor for $25 per week, plus food from the kitchen left over from the meal served to the audience before the show. In 2004, on the Australian talk show Enough Rope, interviewer Andrew Denton briefly touched on the topic of Neill's stuttering. He recalled how deeply it had affected him in his life and, as a result, he often found himself "hoping that people wouldn't talk to [him]" so he would not have to answer them. He also stated, "I kind of outgrew it [but] you can still detect me as a stammerer." ==Career==

New Zealand Neill's first film was a New Zealand television film The City of No (1971). He followed it with a short, The Water Cycle (1972) and the television film ''Hunt's Duffer (1973). Neill wrote and directed a film for the New Zealand National Film Unit, Telephone Etiquette (1974). He also appeared in Landfall'' (1975). Neill's breakthrough performance in New Zealand was the film Sleeping Dogs (1977), the first local film to be widely screened overseas. Australia Neill went to Australia where he had a guest role on the TV show The Sullivans. He was the romantic male lead in My Brilliant Career (1979), opposite Judy Davis, which was a big international success. He made some Australian films that were less widely seen: The Journalist (1979), Just Out of Reach (1979) and Attack Force Z (1981), and appeared in television productions such as Young Ramsay and Lucinda Brayford. International career In 1981, he won his first big international role, as Damien Thorn, son of the devil, in Omen III: The Final Conflict; also in that year, he played a main role in Andrzej Żuławski's cult film Possession. He was one of the leading candidates to succeed Roger Moore in the role of James Bond, but lost out to Timothy Dalton. Among his many Australian roles is playing Michael Chamberlain in Evil Angels (1988) (released as A Cry in the Dark outside Australia and New Zealand), a film about the case of Azaria Chamberlain. Neill has played heroes and occasionally villains in a succession of film and television dramas and comedies. In the UK, he won early fame and was Golden Globe nominated after portraying real-life spy, Sidney Reilly, in the mini-series Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983). An early American starring role was in 1987's Amerika, playing a senior KGB officer leading the occupation and division of a defeated United States. His leading and co-starring roles in films include the thriller Dead Calm (1989), Sirens (1994), The Jungle Book (1994), John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1995), Event Horizon (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999), the comedy The Dish (2000), He had a role in the BBC series Peaky Blinders, set in post-World War I Birmingham. He played the role of Chief Inspector Chester Campbell, a sadistic corrupt policeman, who came to clean up the town on Churchill's orders. In the 2015 BBC TV miniseries And Then There Were None, based on Agatha Christie's thriller, he played the role of General MacArthur. In 2016, he starred in the New Zealand-made film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, directed by Taika Waititi, as well as the ITV miniseries Tutankhamun. In 2017, Neill appeared in a scene in Waititi's fantasy sequel Thor: Ragnarok, in which he portrays an actor playing Odin (as depicted by Anthony Hopkins), alongside Luke Hemsworth and Matt Damon as actors playing Thor and Loki, respectively. He portrays the same actor in Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022. In 2018, he portrayed Mr. McGregor and also provided the voice of Tommy Brock, in Peter Rabbit. In 2019, he was cast for the role of Denis Goldberg in Escape from Pretoria; however, the role was subsequently recast with Ian Hart. In late 2019, he was announced to reprise his character of Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic World Dominion, which released in June 2022. In 2022, Neill appeared in the Foxtel legal drama The Twelve as Brett Colby. When the series was renewed for series 2, Neill would reprise the role of Colby being the only member of the original season one cast to do so. On 16 September 2024, it was announced that The Twelve had been renewed for a third season and Neill would be returning as Colby. On 6 December 2024, Neill was announced as a nominee for the 2025 AACTA awards for his role on The Twelve. On 21 June 2024, Neill was named in the cast for the Netflix drama Untamed. On April 15, 2025, Neill's casting in Godzilla x Kong: Supernova had been announced. ==Personal life==

In 1980, Neill met actress Lisa Harrow while filming Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) and they have a son. He married make-up artist Noriko Watanabe in 1989 and they have one daughter together. He also adopted Watanabe's daughter from her first marriage. He separated from Watanabe in 2017, and dated Australian political journalist Laura Tingle from 2018 to 2021. As of 2023, he has eight grandchildren. In his early twenties, Neill fathered a son who was placed for adoption. They reunited in 1994. Neill lives in Alexandra, New Zealand, South Island, and owns a winery called Two Paddocks, consisting of a vineyard at Gibbston and two near Alexandra, all in the Central Otago wine region. His avocation is running Two Paddocks. "I'd like the vineyard to support me but I'm afraid it is the other way round. It is not a very economic business", said Neill, He enjoys sharing his exploits on the farm through social media. He names his farm animals after film-industry colleagues. Neill supports the New Zealand Labour Party and the Australian Labor Party. In 2016, he criticized the policies of Premier Mike Baird of New South Wales on lockouts laws and ban on greyhound racing. Neill has spoken positively on the premiership of Jacinda Ardern. He has been a member of the Equity New Zealand trade union since 1979. In March 2023, Neill revealed that he had been undergoing chemotherapy since March 2022 after being diagnosed with stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, following swollen glands that were first noticed during publicity for Jurassic World Dominion. He stated that the cancer is in remission, but he will require monthly chemotherapy for the rest of his life. Neill used his year away from work while undergoing his cancer treatment to write a memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, published in March 2023. Neill supports local advocacy group Sustainable Tarras, which has organised events against the mining proposal. He described Santana Mineral's proposal for as "ruinous for the region". ==Filmography==

Film Television Video games As himself ==Books==

• • (Australian edition) ==Honours, awards and nominations==

Neill was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours, for services as an actor. In the 2007 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM). When knighthoods were returned to the New Zealand royal honours system in 2009, those with DCNZM or higher honours were given the option of converting them into knighthoods. Neill chose not to do this, saying the title of Sir was "just far too grand, by far". However, in June 2022, he accepted redesignation as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Neill was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Canterbury in 2002. Neill was awarded the 2019 Equity New Zealand Lifetime achievement award, celebrating his distinguished performance career, as well as his leadership and mentoring towards others in the acting industry. In 2020, he received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Award, limited to 20 living people. Awards and nominations ==See also==