A year that sums up Sam Neill’s versatile talentspublished at 07:38 Moscow time
Colin Paterson
BBC News entertainment correspondent
Image Source, Getty ImagesImage caption,
Sam Neill played Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park films.
If we look at one year, it kind of sums up Sam Neill.
In 1993, he starred as Dr. Alan Grant in the huge blockbuster Jurassic Park. I showed it to my boys for the first time last month and it is still a movie and really scared them.
Another film he directed in 1993 was The Piano, directed by Jane Campion. It couldn’t be a more different film. It won the Palme d’Or, starred Holly Hunter as a mute woman, and was set in New Zealand. Sam Neill’s role completely changes in the last act of the film because at the beginning he is a devoted husband and then he just bursts into this nightmare character.
One of his breakthrough roles was filmed in Britain in the very early 1980s – I think people forget he was Damien in the third Omen film.
That’s how versatile this guy was. He could play the whole gamut and that’s why there will be a real outpouring today.