Sam Neill: Actor known for starring role as Jurassic Park paleontologist

By Casey Cooper-Fiske, Press Association Senior Entertainment Reporter

Best known for his role as tough, no-nonsense paleontologist Dr Alan Grant, Sam Neill was loved by audiences for his starring role in the Jurassic Park film franchise.

Born on September 14th, 1947, in Omagh, Northern Ireland, to an English mother and a New Zealander father, Neill moved to Christchurch in New Zealand in 1954, where he attended the University Of Canterbury, but was uncertain on which career path to follow, at one point considering becoming a lawyer.

During his time at university, Neill starred in a number of plays, and transferred from Canterbury to Victoria University Of Wellington to finish his bachelor of arts degree, with his first screen appearance coming in New Zealand television film, The City Of No (1971).

He continued to appear in a number of programmes and TV films in his home country, before going on to work in Australia, where he had a guest role on the TV show, The Sullivans, and was the romantic male lead in My Brilliant Career (1979).

Neill first gained attention for his role in the 1977 thriller Sleeping Dogs, and in 1981, he took on his first major international role as Damien Thorn, son of the devil, in Omen III: The Final Conflict.

Following the departure of Roger Moore as James Bond in 1985, Neill was considered for the role but lost out to Timothy Dalton.

Neill was Golden Globe nominated for his role as real-life spy, Sidney Reilly, in the mini-series Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983), and he went on to have major roles in films such as Dead Calm (1989), The Piano (1990) and The Hunt for Red October (1990), before landing his best known role in Jurassic Park (1993).

In Jurassic Park, Neill’s character was invited to the prehistoric theme park by its creator, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), alongside Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and was initially sceptical of the idea, before later discovering that the dinosaurs in the park were breeding.

Neill would go on to reprise the role of Dr Alan in Jurassic Park III in 2001, which saw his character struggling to secure funding for his velociraptor research before a wealthy couple offer their support in return for an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, the setting of the dinosaur park in The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).

He made his last appearance in the film franchise in 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion, and has also voiced the character in three video games based on the series.

Other recognisable roles for Neill during the 1990s included the live action adaption of The Jungle Book (1994), John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1995) and Bicentennial Man (1999).

In recent years, Neill turned more towards television, appearing in the first series of BBC historical drama The Tudors as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop Of York, and had a role as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell, a sadistic corrupt policeman, in Peaky Blinders.

Film roles in his later years included as Odin in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love And Thunder (2022), voicing Mr McGregor and Tommy Brock in Peter Rabbit (2018) and the latter character in Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021).

Neill’s last film appearance came in The Fox (2025) and his last TV appearance came in Netflix series Untamed (2025), while he is expected to make posthumous appearances in Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and The Last Resort in 2027.

He had three children, one with actress Lisa Harrow; one with his ex-wife, make-up artist Noriko Watanabe, whose daughter from her first marriage he also adopted; and a son whom he fathered in his 20s and was put up for adoption before the pair reunited in 1994.

Neill was appointed an Officer Of The Order Of The British Empire (OBE) in 1991 for his services to acting and a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) in 2006.

After a change to New Zealand’s honours system allowed recipients to convert the DCNZM into a knighthood, Neill accepted the equivalent honour with a redesignation ceremony hosted by New Zealand governor-general Dame Cindy Kiro in October 2022.

He became a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Neill announced in April 2026 that he was cancer-free after treatment, three years after revealing he was battling a “ferocious” and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.