RIP Sam Neill

I've gotten in the habit of checking the Wikipedia page "[Current Year] in film" if I want to catch up on any film industry deaths that I may have missed. A page otherwise devoted to release dates and box office feats also has a section at the bottom that comprehensively lists those who have passed and the dates of their deaths. It was this way that I recently learned of the sad passing of Daveigh Chase, who played Donnie Darko's little sister Samantha. I won't get into the grim details of the last decade of her life.

I went to check just now, as a way of killing some evening downtime (poor choice of words), and it was then that I saw the latest addition to the list, surely only a few hours old: Kiwi actor Sam Neill.

What to say about Neill, given that I don't worship at the altar of Jurassic Park like some people do?

I always loved his screen presence. He had a kind face, even though he did not always play kind characters. And there was something about that crocodile grin that could be both jovial and sinister, depending on how he wanted to use.

But I think what I really want to say in this memorial piece was that I felt a certain kinship toward him because of his roots in this part of the world. 

In the years after I first moved here, Neill turned up in a lot of local projects, Australian TV shows and movies that always seemed not strictly necessary for someone of his international talents. Granted those years have covered his mid-60s to his late-70s, when glorified character actors like him are seeing their roles reduced a bit. But I felt like he wanted to work in this part of the world, to lend his name to projects that otherwise might struggle without it. And I always enjoyed what he brought to them.

Of course there was a time when Neill really was a hot Hollywood commodity, in the years immediately after Jurassic Park, when he made movies like Event Horizon, The Horse Whisperer and Bicentennial Man. Okay so maybe "hot" was a strong word. And then of course there was also The Piano, contemporaneous with JP. 

And I think that's why I really gravitated toward the later part of his career, when he put his leading man ambitions behind him and made movies that helped give the Australian and New Zealand film industries additional credibility, like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Sweet Country and the Australian remake of Rams. By the time of his passing, he'd seasoned into a regional legend, a beloved elder statesman who could play any sunburned outback type you wanted him to play.

But maybe the most fertile part of his career came even before Jurassic Park, in films I didn't discover until later, like Possession, or Dead Calm, or Death in Brunswick, or My Brilliant Career. He had, in a way, a brilliant career, one that probably never played out like either he or we expected. 

The height of my feelings of kinship probably game when he left a video message for my friend who made that guerrilla shot-by-shot remake of Jurassic Park a few years ago, the one where I had blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearances as an extra in a couple scenes. He needn't have done so, especially since the legality of the project was highly questionable, but he did film about a minute-long affable greeting to my friend that was on behalf of him and fellow Park stars Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. Their blessing probably meant a ton to my friend, who was certainly chuffed by the video, to use the local term. 

I had had occasion to contemplate Neill's age -- he was 78 when he died -- but I hadn't had any reason to worry, because he always seemed so fit and full of energy. He had been fighting cancer for a couple years, but Wikipedia says he was cancer free at the time of his death. Maybe 78 years was just enough for his body.

I'll miss him, and so will the film industries of three countries.