Sam Neill, star of Jurassic Park, Peaky Blinders and The Piano, dies at the age of 78 | Sam Neill

Sam Neill, the versatile New Zealand actor whose career spanned Oscar-winners and blockbusters such as The Piano and Jurassic Park, has died at the age of 78.

The actor’s death was announced on Monday in a statement shared on his Instagram account. No cause of death has been determined, but Neil recently revealed he is cancer-free after being diagnosed with stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, in 2022.

“It is with great sadness that Wano Sam Neil announced the news of his death on Monday, July 13, in Sydney, Australia. Sam was surrounded by his family and died with the dignity that defined his entire life.

“The loss was sudden and unexpected, but they are blessed by the fact that Sam remains cancer-free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their amazing care.

“More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they deal with this devastating loss.”

Neil was born Nigel John Dermot Neil in 1947 in Omagh, Northern Ireland to an English mother and a New Zealander father who served in the British Army. Niels’ family moved to New Zealand in 1954. He took the name Sam when he was 12 because there were many Nigels at his school, and “I found that I moved more easily in the world as Sam. Nigel is a misfit in most circumstances. Imagine you are a film actor called Nigel Neill.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Neil was one of the greats.

“It started when there was no film industry in this country to speak of,” Luxon said in a social media post. “For more than fifty years, he has taken New Zealand’s stories to the world and his talents have helped make our film industry into what it is today – one of our greatest cultural exports. His work will be seen and loved long after us all.”

New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said Neil was a Kiwi icon, having “worked in both local and Hollywood films… entertaining people all over the world for decades”.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said Neil brought great pride to the country through his many heroic roles. “He is also a champion of New Zealand’s arts, culture, unique environment and wine,” Clark said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the actor, writing on the

Novelist Cathy Litt said Neil’s unexpected death was heartbreaking: “Sam was not only a wonderful actor but also the most charming, kind, intelligent and deliciously self-deprecating friend. His sarcastic, dry sense of humor and his mischievous twinkle brightened our lives.”

Actor David Wenham said that “apart from being an all-round global legend”, Neil was “the kindest, most generous and supportive friend”.

Neil attended school and university in Christchurch, but only settled on acting after failing a “disastrous” year of studying law. He began appearing in Canterbury University productions, and moved to Wellington to join the Downstage Theater as a professional actor, where he was paid $35 a week and any food left over from the kitchen from meals served to the audience before the show.

After some small roles on local television, his breakout role was in 1977’s Sleeping Dogs, the first New Zealand film to open in the United States. Soon after he landed a lead role in My Wonderful Career (1979); He played the son of Satan in Omen III (1981); Featured in Andrzej Żuławski’s cult film Possession (1981); In the 1988 biopic Evil Angels (also known as A Cry in the Dark), as Michael, Lindy Chamberlain’s husband, opposite Meryl Streep; And in The Hunt for Red October (1990). His role in Ivanhoe (1982) made Neil a big name in Sweden, where the film was broadcast on television every New Year’s Day for 40 years.

Neil gained widespread international attention in 1993 with two performances: the role of New Zealand settler Alisdair Stewart in Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning The Piano; and as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, a role originally offered to Harrison Ford. Neil played Alan Grant again in the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World Dominion.

Neil has forged a career playing unforgettable romantic characters and charismatic villains. He has more than 150 credits over five decades, including Dead Calm, The Jungle Book, In the Mouth of Madness, Event Horizon, Bicentennial Man, The Dish, and Peter Rabbit. He was one of the leading candidates to succeed Roger Moore as James Bond, and had a screen test in 1986, but lost out to Timothy Dalton.

In 2016, he starred in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which led to small appearances in Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder.

Neil has also worked in television, playing corrupt Major Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders, Twelve, The Tudors, and episodes of The Simpsons and Rick and Morty. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of spy Sidney Reilly in the 1983 miniseries Reilly’s Ace of Spies.

Neil lived on a farm and winery called Two Paddocks, in the Central Otago wine region. He described it as “a job that consumes a lot of time and money. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t very satisfying and enjoyable, and it made me angry from time to time.” He named his farm animals after colleagues, including Laura Dern (chicken), Kylie Minogue (duck), and Helena Bonham Carter (cow).

In 2023, Neil revealed in his memoir, Have I Ever Told You About This? He had been undergoing chemotherapy for a year after being diagnosed with stage III angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. By the time his book was published, his cancer was in remission, but he underwent monthly chemotherapy for the rest of his life, having signed a contract with the pharmaceutical company stipulating that if he was alive after four months, the treatment would be free.

“I’m not afraid of death, but it would bother me,” he told The Guardian in 2023. “Because I really want another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these beautiful terraces, and we’ve got the olive trees and the cypress trees, and I want to be there to see it all grow. And I have my beautiful little grandchildren. I want to see them grow up. But as for death? I couldn’t care less.”

He said he “feared” any possibility of retirement. “Some of it is about coming from a small place, the most obscure place in the world, far away from anything you could possibly get, and being asked to do something that has an international dimension. How tempting is that?”

Neil was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 for services to acting and a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) in 2007. Years later, after a change in New Zealand’s honors system allowed recipients to convert the DCNZM to a knighthood, he accepted a knighthood and was made a Sir in 2022.

Neil jokingly described his family life as “fairly random” because of his career. He is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren. His children are Andrew, who was put up for adoption when Neil was in his early 20s but was reunited with his father in 1994; Tim, his son with actor Lisa Harrow; Elena, his daughter with makeup artist Noriko Watanabe; And Maiko, Watanabe’s daughter from her first marriage, who was adopted by Neil.