Sam Neill was a warm, sarcastic, selfless star who shined so others could shine | Sam Neill

Sam Neill was a leading man who achieved something no other actor could: he was both charismatic and introverted at the same time.

He can play handsome and good-humoured or devilishly sinister, often playing husband and head of the family, invariably in an indeterminate state of early middle age, sometimes colonial, but the film’s oxygen is never sucked away in his excellent, selfless performance.

He had a brave and unique way of showcasing his female star, like Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm (1989), Judy Davis in My Brilliant Career (1979), Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark (1988), or Holly Hunter in The Piano (1993). He was often portrayed as a quiet, old-fashioned authority figure, which is perhaps why he became world-famous playing off the dinosaurs as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) – the dinosaurs were the stars, but they’d be nothing without sublime supporting human performances of the sort given by Neill.

It could be said that Neil was following in the tradition of the dependable but unobtrusively good-looking romantic hero of Hollywood, such as Robert Taylor or Guy Madison, but with the skill of a classic, unglamorous actor in projecting character; He had a wicked, quirky sense of humor that blossomed entertainingly late in life, particularly in his endearing Instagram posts. Perhaps most important of all, he was adept at pointing out the most unfashionable quality of all: masculinity.

My favorite Sam Neill performance is one of his least known: in the spoof comedy The Dish (2000), based on the true story of how a team of Australian technicians, led by Neill’s affable, pipe-smoking chief scientist, transmitted live television images of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 from their radio telescope in New South Wales when it became clear that the Americans’ equipment would not be ready in time. It served as an example of the Old World’s underdog relationship with the United States in popular culture: the story of being strong, competent, likable, and resourceful. Sam Neill embodied it all.

Among his darker, more reserved roles is Stuart, the stubborn colonist in Jane Campion’s enigmatic The Piano, whose bride, Ada, played by Holly Hunter, is robbed of speech by some unrevealed past trauma or abuse, and comes to 19th-century New Zealand with a baby grand piano that has to be carried from the beach by Stuart’s eccentric servant Baines, played by Harvey Keitel. Perhaps Neil was destined to be overshadowed by the more unusual and eye-catching roles here, as often happens in his film career. (By the way, no male performer in the world could take the attention away from Meryl Streep in her role in A Cry in the Dark (1988), and Sam Neill had to resign herself to the lack of limelight as her strict priest husband.)

However, without his unspoken feelings in The Piano – Neil shows us that he is as mute in some ways as Ada – the film would be worthless. Subsequently, Neil himself became a respected commentator on the complex history of New Zealand cinema through the documentary he wrote and co-directed: The Cinema of Anxiety: A Personal Journey by Sam Neil (1995).

Another major supporting role was as Russian submarine officer, Borodin in Sean Connery’s Cold War thriller The Hunt for Red October (1990), in which Connery embarks on his own mysterious campaign of secret undersea warfare (having, incidentally, killed a political officer named Putin). It’s a classic supporting role for Neill, who, as an all-rounder, could play a Rossi perfectly – although perhaps modern Hollywood now needs real Rosses for the roles of Connery and Neill.

Andrzej Żuławski’s horror thriller Possession (1981) was another espionage drama for Neil in a way – he played a spy whose marriage to Isabelle Adjani had collapsed, and their marital and emotional pain found nightmarish and supernatural expression. Neil gives his all to this strange and amazing film that allows him freedom as an actor. Another film that did this was John Carpenter’s Lovecraftian horror film In the Mouth of Madness (1994), in which an insurance adjuster is driven to mad despair by the task of investigating the disappearance of a writer.

The pinnacle of Neil’s “dark” roles – fierce and controlling but interestingly atypical within his commercial identity as a film actor – was as Satan himself in Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981), as the now-adult Antichrist played by Damian Thorne, played in the previous two films by Jonathan Scott Taylor and Harvey Stevens. Neil looked very much like the adult version of these child actors: there was something spoiled and polished about his appearance, like a Wasp version of a Renaissance prince. The more powerful appearance of Liev Schreiber in the remake was completely different. Neil was great at casting because even here, at this early stage of his career, he was attached to nice guy roles. His corporate version of Satanism here likely inspired his performance as the vampire CEO in Daybreakers (2009).

In some ways, husband roles have been Neil’s forte: he’s the respectable older husband in Dead Calm, chasing sexy villain Billy Zane into the open waters to protect his wife, Nicole Kidman. His husband in “The Piano” was an echo of the husband he played in Gillian Armstrong’s “My Brilliant Career,” in which he fell in love with Judy Davis’ passionate, free-spirited Sibilla in that oppressive and alienating colonial environment redolent of patriarchy — and Neil was often the more sympathetic and decent side of that patriarchy.

In later years, Neil settled into likable, grey-bearded roles that made room for his wit and hilarity – and given his international status as cinema’s greatest New Zealander (even though he was born in Northern Ireland), it’s perhaps a shame that he didn’t get a role in Peter Jackson’s New Zealand-set Lord of the Rings films, due to production schedule conflicts with Jurassic Park III (it’s interesting to wonder how he could have played Gandalf). He was the gentle farmer in Rams (2000) and director Taika Waititi cleverly exploited Sam Neill’s comedic potential in his family comedy Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), where he had a classic quirky duet with a kid on the run in the woods with his grumpy old foster uncle Hec played by Neill, a role that allowed him to steal the hearts of moviegoers in a way he had never done before. As a younger man. He was an actor and star who became an industry legend.