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Sam Neill, the 78-year-old man. New Zealand actor best known for his role in Jurassic Park, died on monday after contracting pneumonia, a co-star said.
Rima Te Wiata, a New Zealand actress who appeared with Neill in the 2016 comedy “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” said The New Zealand Herald that he was “a very stable, peaceful and down-to-earth man.”
In an interview with the outlet, Te Wiata recounted occasions when Neill told the press that he was not afraid of death but that it would “bother” him.
Neill’s death came after he said he was cancer-free in April, years after he was diagnosed with stage three non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Sam Neill attends the 2025 AACTA Awards presented by Foxtel Group at HOTA on February 7, 2025 in Gold Coast, Australia. (Chris Hyde/Getty Images for AFI)
“It really sucks,” Te Wiata said. “I think he would say, ‘For God’s sake, I beat my cancer. And now look, now I have pneumonia. Now what?'”
Neill’s family announced his death Monday through a instagram postsaying he died while at St. Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney, Australia.
“Sam was surrounded by family and passed away with the dignity that has characterized his entire life,” they said. “The loss was sudden and unexpected, but it was a blessing that Sam remained cancer-free.”
Neill, who played paleontologist Alan Grant alongside co-stars Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough in 1993’s “Jurassic Park,” has been remembered in tributes from around the world.
Dern, 59, called Neill “my dear, lifelong friend” in a social media post.
From left to right, actors Richard Attenborough (as John Hammond), Martin Ferrero (as Donald Gennaro), Sam Neill (as Alan Grant), Jeff Goldblum (as Ian Malcolm) and Laura Dern (as Ellie Sattler) in the 1993 film “Jurassic Park.” (Murray Close/Moviepix/Getty Images)
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“He showed me the depths of loyalty, protection and love, always with the courage of wit. He was a true and noble gentleman, wrapped up in the protagonist of my dreams,” Dern wrote.
Goldblum posted a slideshow of images from the film along with the message: “The next great adventure begins. Love, always and forever.”
In a statement to Variety, director Steven Spielberg She said she “loved doing all the ‘Jurassic’ movies with him.”
“Together with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our ‘Jurassic’ family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his millions of fans around the world,” Spielberg added.
Sam Neill stands out in the rain in a scene from the movie “Jurassic Park.” (Universal/Getty Images)
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Laura Tingle, a journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who also dated Neill for several years, revealed that he had been ill for “the last few weeks”, in an interview with ABC Radio Sydney.
“Everyone who loved him has wished for him from near and far, but I think it was too much to take back one more time,” Tingle said.
“He had had a lot of chemotherapy and a lot of immunotherapy and, fortunately, the blood cancer he had was finally gone, but that left him quite compromised in terms of his immune system,” he added.
Cillian Murphy attends the premiere of “Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man” at Kino International on March 12, 2026, in Berlin, Germany. (Gerald Matzka/Getty Images)
Throughout his decades-long career, Neill has had more than 150 acting credits. movies and television showsincluding “The Hunt for Red October”, “The Piano”, “Event Horizon” and “Merlin”.
In 2013, Neill played a role in Peaky Blinders, an award-winning police series set in Britain after the First World War.
Co-star Cillian Murphy remembered Neill as “one of the kindest, funniest, kindest people, and one of the best actors,” in a statement provided to Page six.
Nicole Kidman He also paid tribute to Neill, whom he met as a young actress on the set of the 1989 Australian thriller “Dead Calm.”
Nicole Kidman poses with Sam Neill in “Dead Calm” in 1989. (Michael Ochs Files/Getty Images)
“We met when I was just 18 and he took me under his wing and we remained friends for life. He was charming, kind, funny and intelligent,” she said in a statement to the Sydney Morning Herald.
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Neill was born in 1947 in Omagh, a town of about 20,000 people in Northern Ireland. In the early 1950s, he moved to New Zealand with his family.
For his outstanding contributions to cinema, Neill was knighted in New Zealand in 2022.
