Sam Neill
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot Neill DCNZM OBE, known professionally as Sam Neill, is a Northern Irish–born New Zealand actor who first achieved leading roles in films such as Omen III: The Final Conflict and Dead Calm and on television in Reilly, Ace of Spies. He won a broad international audience in 1993 for his roles as Alisdair Stewart in The Piano and Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, a role he reprised in 2001's Jurassic Park III. Neill also had notable...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth14 September 1947
CityOmagh, Ireland
CountryIreland
If you want to learn about America, watch 'The Wire.' It's a profound piece of entertainment.
[Hunt for the Wilderpeople] people seem to be just finding it hilarious in Sundance. I would think that judging on the feedback I get; it's a very warming film. It's not sentimental, but people are sort of heart warmed by a message that's pretty rare.
You never really know who you're going to be acting with, but that doesn't really matter. 99% of the actors I've worked with, and they number in the thousands, I've liked.
I like actors. I like their insecurities, their humor and their intelligence.
I like being around actors. Imagine not liking actors.
Actors are easy to like. They are generally sociable, thoughtful people.
Nobody knows who Barry Crump is, anywhere, but in New Zealand he's huge. I am of that age, where I sort of grew up with Barry Crump books. Look, if you read the book, you realize it is actually not a funny book at all.
I never met Barry Crump, but I was in an audience once for a play once. There was a drunken man at the back of the auditorium that was shouting during a performance of a one man play, and it turned out later on that was Barry Crump and he was in a state of inebriation.
Because I was familiar with Taika's Watiti work and there's a very subversive, funny streak amongst all of them. I don't think he turned [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] into a sort of drama, there's too much dark material underneath it for it to be a comedy; it wasn't designed to be a comedy. I think it's a comedy... I think it's a drama that's funny; which is different.
The core of the film [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] is that relationship. Whether they're getting on or whether they're not. If that relationship works, then everything else works as well. And you kind of almost, sort of, gives into a realm of something like New Zealand magic realism... There is no world in which social work is actually pursues some kid into the woods in this manner.
Magic realism - somebody used that phrase the other day that is familiar with South American literature. That rang a bell. It resonates with me.
People turn into fools when they see a movie star and do weird things.