Actor Sam Neill, whose unexpected death was announced today by his family, was claimed as a son by not one, but three countries.

Neill’s light-hearted description of his highly-successful vigneron business reflected his approach to his acting career

Born in Northern Ireland, grown up in New Zealand, and first making his name in Australia, Neill was more than the ‘Jurassic Park actor’ as first reports of his death labelled him. From the time he first enjoyed the spotlight in the 1970s Australian film, My Brilliant Career, and his Bafta-winning portrayal of the enigmatic Sidney Reilly in television’s Reilly, Ace of Spies, to his most recent work, Neill’s career was as versatile as it was broad. Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders was Cardinal Wolsey in The Tudors. Astronaut Weir in the Hollywood blockbuster Event Horizon was Hector the eccentric foster uncle in cult New Zealand film Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Forty years ago, Neill even screen-tested for the role of James Bond, with a licence to thrill.

Neill could play anyone, yet always played versions of himself. For decades, and especially since the first Jurassic Park in 1993, Neill was a genuine international star, whose likeability and relatability was box office gold. Yet he was most at home Down Under, and became a mainstay of both the Australian and New Zealand film industries.

‘I can’t think of anything more fun to do than acting, most particularly in movies’, Neill said last month while promoting his forthcoming animated Australian film, The Fox. ‘It’s good to be in films that people remember with affection’.

But for decades there was something for Neiil that was as much, if not more, fun than acting. In New Zealand’s Otago region, renowned for its world-class cool climate wines, Neill forged a parallel career as a vigneron and winemaker. His Two Paddocks winery – best known for its award-winning pinot noir and Riesling – started in 1993, along with Jurassic Park.

On the winery’s website, Neill answers his own question as to why he was a winemaker. ‘That’s a tough question. The existential one’, he wrote. ‘Well, because we can. Because the Proprietor (Neill) is slightly mad. Because we think we should. And because we love country life: we are farmers’.

Neill’s light-hearted description of his highly-successful vigneron business reflected his approach to his acting career. He succeeded not just because of his prodigious dramatic talent and versatility, but because he didn’t take himself too seriously. Because he didn’t try hard to be liked, he was loved.

Neill’s politics were moderately left of centre, but he never made an issue of them, nor did he use his public profile as a pulpit for his views. Instead, the universal sense is that the acting world has lost one of its most decent people, and the countries Down Under have lost someone deserving of their ultimate antipodean epitaph, ‘he was a good bloke’.

In Australia and New Zealand, the initial reaction to Neill’s death was disbelief. Even at age 78, he seemed timeless. Even despite his battles with cancer in recent years, he seemed indestructible. And, inevitably, the prime ministers of both countries sought to claim him as their own.

‘Sir Sam Neill was one of the greats. He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today’, wrote New Zealand prime minister, Christopher Luxon.

Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese said: ‘Sam Neill starred in so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts. Wry and dry, thoughtful and laconic, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour and conviction that gave strength to his every performance. He will be much mourned and long remembered’.

In reality, however, he belonged to both nations, and was proud that he did. He was Australian when in Australia, and a Kiwi when in New Zealand, and loved for it in both.

Neill’s New Zealand knighthood was awarded, for services to film, in 2022, when his cancer prognosis looked dire – he declared himself finally cancer-free earlier this year. His own account of accepting the honour reflects the laconic and warm character of the man. ‘I didn’t want the title 10 or 12 years ago’, he said in 2023. ‘Then when I thought I was dying two years ago, I thought “Oh, bugger it, I might as well go out with the title”, so I changed my mind’.

Today, after his own brilliant career, Sam Neill went out with the title.