Fellow actors and fans of Sam Neill mourned his passing after the actor died Monday following a diagnosis of a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Neill achieved his highest level of fame in Jurassic Park playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.
Sam Neill earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries Merlin and another as narrator of 2017’s Wild New Zealand. Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods — for Merlin, One Against the Wind and Reilly: Ace of Spies.
“I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our ‘Jurassic’ family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.” in a statement to Variety.
“Like everyone who knew and worked with Sam, I admired him and adored him in equal measure. He was one of the kindest, funniest and gentlest people, and one of the finest actors … RIP.” — in a statement.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
“Sir Sam Neill was one of the greats. He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today — one of our greatest cultural exports.” — via X.
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