Per a statement from his family, veteran New Zealand actor Sam Neill has died, aged 78. Neill was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2022, but it had gone into remission by the time of his death. The statement only says, “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free,” and that he was being cared for at St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney, Australia at the time of his death.
Neill was best known for playing paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg‘s Jurassic Park (1993), a role he reprised for Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), as well as in the video games Jurassic World Evolution (2018) and Evolution 2 (2021). He worked with fellow New Zealander Taika Waititi three times, first on Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and then on Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), where he cameoed as the Asgardian stage actor who portrays Odin.
He also worked with director John Carpenter twice, on Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), and In the Mouth of Madness (1994). Other films across his long career included 1981’s Possession and Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Hunt for Red October (1990), 1993’s The Piano and Sirens, The Jungle Book (1994), 1997’s Event Horizon and Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer (1998), Bicentennial Man (1999), The Dish (2000), Zack Snyder‘s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010), and the Peter Rabbit series (2018-21).
His similarly prolific TV career included playing the burglar Molloy on The Simpsons (1994); Peter Jackson and Costa Botes‘s mockumentary Forgotten Silver (1995); the lead role in 1998’s miniseries Merlin, and its 2006 sequel Merlin’s Apprentice; Thomas Jefferson in Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000); Doctor Zhivago (2002); Cardinal Wolsey on The Tudors (2007); Crusoe (2008); Alcatraz (2012); Peaky Blinders (2013); And Then There Were None (2015); Rick and Morty (2019); and Untamed (2025).
Neill was born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Northern Ireland on September 14, 1947, to parents from England and New Zealand. They moved to New Zealand when he was a child, and he began acting while studying at the University of Canterbury. He is survived by make-up artist Noriko Watanabe, whom he married in 1989, although the pair had separated in 2017. He had four children, including one with Omen III co-star Lisa Harlow, and eight grandchildren. In his spare time, he ran a wine company called Two Paddocks, based out of his farms and wineyards in Alexandra, New Zealand.
He was honored during his life with a knighthood, an honorary doctorate from the University of Canterbury, and a lifetime Screen Legend Award from the New Zealand Screen Awards. He won three awards from Australia’s TV Week Logies (for Jessica, 2005, and The Twelve in 2023 and 2025), two from the Australian Film Critics Association (for The Daughter, 2017, and Sweet Country, 2019), and one from the Australian Film Institute (for A Cry in the Dark, 1988). He was never nominated for an Academy Award, but received three nominations from the Golden Globes (including one for Merlin), two from the Emmys, and two from the Saturns.
New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon, and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, are among those who have paid tribute to Neill, saying he “made us proud to be Kiwis and we couldn’t have been prouder of him.” His fellow Ragnarok cast member Karl Urban, who is also from New Zealand, paid tribute, calling him “an inspiration for many who followed in his trailblazing footsteps. A beautiful man, a national treasure who gave so much to New Zealand and to the world. God speed Sam.”
Neill will appear posthumously in Godzilla x Kong: Supernova (due out March 26, 2027), as well as in the black comedy The Fox (releasing in Australia on October 29), and the rom com The Last Resort (out sometime in 2027).
