Sam Neill death: Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders actor dies as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leads tributes – UK Times

When Sam Neill was cast as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in the 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, the character was supposed to be American.

But on the first day of shooting, Neill, who had spent a month perfecting the accent, was instructed by Spielberg to ditch it in favour of his own New Zealand voice.

“He came up to me halfway through the day and he said, ‘Hey, Sam, you know the accent we were talking about?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve been working on it for four weeks.…’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it, just use your own voice,’” Neill told Vanity Fair.

“I said, ‘That’s great, Steven, thank you so much.’ And then four days later, he came up to me and said, ‘You know that voice you’re using now?’ I said, ‘Yeah, my voice?’ He said, ‘Somewhere in between.’

“It’s an actor’s nightmare!” Neill said. “So that’s why I get a lot of flak to this day: Sam Neill’s American accent in Jurassic Park was a load of T-rex poo.”

As well as being a film star, Sam Neill owned a farm and vineyard called Two Paddocks in Central Otago, New Zealand – and its residents were named after fellow famous people.

He had pigs called Angelica Huston and Imogen Poots, a rooster named Michael Fassbender and his cow was called Helena Bonham Carter.

He also renamed his bull Graham Norton after initially crowning him James Nesbitt, and named his sheep Susan Sarandon and one of his chickens Meryl Streep.

For the amusement of his half a million X/Twitter followers, Sam Neill enjoyed “making an idiot of myself on social media” during the pandemic.

He regularly posted kooky videos, which saw him playing “Uptown Funk” on the ukulele, painting “post-postmodernist” portraits of Stephen Fry, reading Dr Seuss stories, making spoof movie trailers, setting his garden gnome up on a date and showing off his fridge magnet collection;

“People need a bit of cheering up, you know? They’re sort of miserable,” Neill told The Independent in 2020.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led the tributes for the Jurassic Park actor.

“Sam Neill starred in so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts,” he wrote on X/Twitter.

“Wry and dry, thoughtful and laconic, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour and conviction that gave strength to his every performance.

“He will be much mourned and long remembered. May he rest in peace.”

After being diagnosed with cancer in 2022, Sam Neill declared he wasn’t “afraid to die” – but said it would “annoy him”.

“Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know?” the New Zealand actor told The Guardian.

“We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big.”

The actor was cancer-free when he died, according to his family.

“I was on chemotherapy and the pretty miserable business but it was keeping me alive,” he said. “Then the chemo stopped working. I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal, obviously.”

However, he claimed his condition started to change after he discovered CAR T-cell therapy, which is reportedly a treatment that “genetically modifies patients’ blood cells” and is only being used in clinical trials in Australia.

“I’ve had a scan just now, and there is no cancer in my body. This is an extraordinary thing,” Neill revealed.

Sam Neill’s family shared a statement reading: “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia.”

“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care.

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