Sam Neill, that wry New Zealander with the face of a mildly disappointed bloodhound and the voice of a man who had seen too many dinosaurs to be surprised by anything, has finally called 'cut' on his time in this world at the age of 78. He died as he lived: with quiet dignity, a glass of something decent in hand, and probably wondering why the rest of us made such a fuss about it all.
Born Omagh, Northern Ireland, in 1947, he was whisked to Christchurch, New Zealand, as a boy, where the landscape taught him early that nature was both magnificent and faintly ridiculous. He studied English literature, dabbled in theatre, and eventually drifted into acting with the air of a man who had wandered into the wrong profession but decided to stay for the sandwiches. Success came steadily rather than in vulgar bursts: "My Brilliant Career", "The Piano", and "The Hunt for Red October" bought him to prominence. Yet it was as Dr Alan Grant in "Jurassic Park" that he achieved immortality, running from CGI lizards while maintaining the expression of a palaeontologist who had just remembered he left the oven on.
Neill always seemed slightly amused by Hollywood’s excesses, as if the entire industry were a slightly overblown school play. In 1986 he even screen-tested for James Bond—a spectacle one suspects he undertook mostly to see if he could keep a straight face. He looked the part, delivered the lines with that dry Kiwi drawl, and then sensibly declined to pursue it. “You really don’t want to be the Bond no one likes,” he later observed with characteristic good sense. One pictures him in the tuxedo, raising a sceptical eyebrow at an exploding helicopter and thinking: "Must I really?"
Off-screen, Neill was no mere thespian tourist. He founded Two Paddocks, his organic winery in Central Otago, and tended it with the devotion others reserve for religion or football. He planted natives, welcomed back tui and bellbirds, fought dubious mining proposals, and generally behaved like a man who understood that the planet was not, in fact, his personal green room.
While lesser celebrities preached environmentalism from private jets, Neill got his hands dirty in the schist soils of his beloved South Island, proving that one could be both movie star and responsible steward of the land. It was, in its quiet way, rather heroic. He leaves behind a body of work remarkable for its range and restraint, a clutch of excellent Pinot Noirs, and the sort of gentle satirical intelligence that made him irresistible company. In an age of shouting, Sam Neill whispered truths with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile. The world is a little less civilised without him.