In the meantime, for an excellent taste of Neill’s work, SBS World Movies has you covered with this special Sam Neill collection, airing Monday December 6 to Friday December 10. These days he’s more likely to be found in a mentor role, as in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) or Rachel Griffiths’ Ride Like a Girl (2019), although 2022 promises a return to one his signature parts, palaeontologist Dr. That last is just one of Neill’s frequent forays into genre territory: he’s a horror and science fiction mainstay, with turns in John Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) and In the Mouth of Madness (1994), Paul WS Anderson’s Event Horizon (1997), and the Spierig Brothers Daybreakers (2009), to name just a few. For many Australians, he made his mark as love interest Harry Beecham opposite Judy Davis’ nascent novelist Sybylla Melvin in Gillian Armstrong’s sublime My Brilliant Career (1979), while American crowds were introduced to a very different Neill when he was literally the antichrist in Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981).ĭoing a point by point of the prolific performer’s career would eat up pages, but it’s worth singling out 1991 as a milestone year, with Neill being horribly menacing in Jane Campion’s The Piano, breezily bohemian as artist Norman Lindsay in John Duigan’s Sirens, and running from dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jurassic Park. His screen career started in 1971 with a role in the New Zealand TV movie The City of No and ambled along steadily until his breakthrough role in Roger Donaldson’s excellent thriller Sleeping Dogs in 1977, the first New Zealand film to reach a wide overseas audience. He’s also absolutely worth a follow on social media, where he frequently posts clips of himself just hanging out on his farm with the various animals he shares it with (most of whom are named after his actor friends). “Avuncular charm” might be the best descriptor of Neill’s appeal – he’s often (though not always – see below) everyone’s favourite uncle, loaded with laid back charisma, sly wit, and a measured appreciation of the finer things in life, such as the wine he produces at Two Paddocks in Central Otago (the flagship pinot noir is a fantastic drop). And he’s been doing it for close to 50 years. There is a lot to like about Sam Neill, a perennially welcome screen presence, enlivening and invigorating any film or series he graces with his presence, either front and centre or in a supporting role.

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