Image source, Getty Images By Steven McIntosh Entertainment reporter Published 13 July 2026 Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor who has died aged 78, will forever be most associated with the film that made him an international star: Jurassic Park.
The 1993 blockbuster dominated his filmography and sparked a series of sequels and reboots - including the recent Jurassic World series, in which he reprised his role as palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant.
But there was much more to Neill's career than escaping Velociraptors in the visitor centre of a billionaire's tropical island.
Across a career spanning five decades, Neill showed himself to be an actor of depth, capable of taking on a wide range of roles in films ranging from box office hits to acclaimed arthouse movies.
He became a global household name relatively late in his career. By the time Jurassic Park came out, Neill was 43 years old and already had a string of screen credits under his belt.
Figure caption, Watch: Sam Neill's career from Jurassic Park to Peaky Blinders
Neill was born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, where his father was serving as an officer with the Royal Irish Fusiliers.
"I was born in Omagh, we lived in Armagh and my favourite place here was Tyrella beach, I sort of think that's where I grew up," Neill told the BBC in 2012.
The family relocated to New Zealand when Neill was seven.
His real name was Nigel, but he began calling himself Sam after finding his new school already had several boys with his name. He later joked that "being christened Nigel set me back for years".
He was not initially sure what kind of career to pursue. Neill decided not to follow his father into the army, or join the hospitality business his family owned.
A brief attempt at a career in the legal profession was cut short after he failed his first year at law school.
Having starred in student productions of Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Neill instead decided to embark on an acting career.
Various film and TV series in New Zealand followed, with a breakout role in his home country coming in 1977 with an appearance in Sleeping Dogs, before Neill moved to Australia and began to land bigger parts.
He credited 1979's My Brilliant Career as "a most important role for me, because that's the film that took me out of New Zealand, and allowed me to live and work in Australia, which I love".
"Yeah, that was probably more transformative than anything else I've done, in a way."
Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Neill pictured with Hunt for the Wilderpeople director Taika Waititi (right) and co-stars Rhys Darby and Julian Dennison
Highlights from this pre-Triceratops era of his filmography include 1981's cult horror Possession and a role opposite Meryl Streep in 1988's A Cry in the Dark, which earned him the Australian Film Institute award for best lead actor.
One of his main breakthrough roles was filmed in the UK in the early 1980s, when he appeared as Damien Thorn, son of the devil, in the supernatural horror Omen III: The Final Conflict.
He also appeared in Jane Campion's 1993 period drama The Piano, which received the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival and went on to win three Oscars.
But it was the release of Jurassic Park in the same year that propelled him to an elite level of worldwide fame.
Steven Spielberg's epic was like nothing audiences had seen before. For the technology available at the time, the di…