There aren’t many actors who have gone down in cinematic history for simply taking off a safari hat and a pair of sunglasses. But when you think of Sam Neill, you probably think of that moment in Jurassic Park when he stands up in the Jeep, removes his shades, and stares, slack-jawed, at a towering Brachiosaurus. Don’t let the explanation of how CGI worked back in the 90s ruin it for you. “What I’m actually looking at is Steven Spielberg with a big long stick with a tennis ball at the end,” he told Graham Norton, even going as far as to recreate the scene for laughs. Sometimes, great acting is just very committed pretending.
Born in Northern Ireland and raised in New Zealand, Neill first came to attention in a white shirt and black tie in period drama My Brilliant Career, before taking a turn to the darker side with Omen III: The Final Conflict, Possession, and In the Mouth of Madness. Hollywood soon beckoned – as second in command to Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October, as Holly Hunter’s husband in The Piano, and as a geeky scientist in cult favourite Event Horizon.
