Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor who played Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, died on Monday 13 July in Sydney, aged 78. Surrounded by family at St Vincent’s Private Hospital, the family’s statement said the loss was “sudden and unexpected, but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free”. He had announced in April that he was clear of the blood cancer he had lived with for years.
Neill built a five-decade career on quiet authority. He also spent a good chunk of it telling politicians exactly what he thought of them.
In October 2016, on a break from filming Thor: Ragnarok in Queensland, Neill was asked about Australia’s stalled same-sex marriage debate during an interview on Nine’s Today. He did not hedge.
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this at all,” he said. “Sixty-four per cent of Australians are for marriage equality, most politicians are for marriage equality. I don’t think it’s any business of anyone’s who should get married and who shouldn’t. Why don’t they just get up and pass the bill? What’s the matter with this constipated parliament?”
How many straight leading men were saying that out loud in 2016? Marriage equality did not become law in Australia until December 2017, after 61.6 per cent of participants in the postal survey voted yes.
Sam Neill in Jurassic Park. (Amblin Entertainment)
The One Role He Wished He’d Taken
Neill turned down the part of Bernadette Bassenger in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Terence Stamp took it instead. Years later, Neill called it the only regret of his career.
“It wasn’t about being in drag, which I’d be happy to do,” he told Gay Express in 2016. “I wear a dress all the time anyway. I just didn’t get it. I didn’t think it was funny in the script, but it turned out to be such a wonderful film.”
He Walked The Bridge With Us
At Sydney WorldPride in 2023, Neill joined the Pride march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He was blunt about why he was there.
“I’m marching against homophobia,” he said. “There’s still too much of that. And today I’m walking with all my friends.”
Sam Neill and Christoph Waltz in The Portable Door. (Story Bridge Films)
Laura Tingle’s Goodbye
Neill was in a relationship with ABC journalist Laura Tingle from 2018 to 2021. On Monday she posted a video montage of the two of them, set to John Hiatt’s Long Time Comin’, with these words: “Sweet Dreams darling Sam.”
At DNA, we ‘ve watched plenty of famous straight men find the community when it suits them. Neill was not one of them. He turned up in 2016 when the vote was still in doubt, and he turned up on the bridge in 2023 when nobody needed him to.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Neill “earned a special place in Australian hearts”. He earned one in ours, too.
