The year that sums up Sam Neill’s versatile talentspublished at 07:38 BST
Colin Paterson
Entertainment Correspondent, BBC News
Image source, Getty ImagesSam 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 Jurassic Park, this enormous blockbuster. I showed it to my own boys for the first time last month, and it really still stands up as a film and truly terrified them.
The other film he made in 1993 was The Piano, directed by Jane Campion. It could not have been a more different film. It won the Palme d’or, Holly Hunter played a mute woman, and it was set in New Zealand. Sam Neill’s role utterly had to change in the last act of the film because he’s the devoted husband at the start, then he just rips into this nightmarish character.
One of his breakthrough roles was filmed in Britain right at the start of the 1980s – I think people forget he was Damien in the third Omen film.
That’s how how versatile this guy was. He could do the whole gamut, and that’s why there’ll be a real outpouring today.
