Say Goodbye to a 'Screen Legend'

Sam Neill, the New Zealand-raised actor who steered Jurassic Park's humans through dinosaur chaos and menaced Holly Hunter in The Piano, has died at 78. His family announced on Instagram that he died Monday in Sydney, surrounded by loved ones, describing the loss as "sudden and unexpected" given that he was cancer-free at the time, per the Hollywood Reporter. Neill revealed in 2023 that he had previously been treated for angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, and said then he wasn't afraid of death, just "annoyed" by the thought of unfinished plans, per CNN.

Over nearly five decades on screen, Neill moved easily between blockbusters and art-house films, playing both heroes and villains in projects like Dead Calm, In the Mouth of Madness, The Hunt for Red October, The Horse Whisperer, and Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople, earning New Zealand's Screen Legend Award in 2025. TV audiences knew him from Reilly: Ace of Spies, Merlin, The Tudors, Peaky Blinders, and, most recently, Apples Never Fall. Away from acting, he ran his Two Paddocks vineyard in New Zealand and became a quietly popular presence online during the pandemic with ukulele videos. He is survived by four children and six grandchildren.