Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, the New Zealand actor who shot to fame playing Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park discussed his early years and his decades-long Hollywood career.
“I’m from a small city in a small country, profoundly isolated from the rest of the world, at the deep south of the Pacific Ocean. The idea that I could become an actor was so far over someone else’s horizon that I never gave it a second thought,” said Neill.
Speaking about the Spielberg’s dinosaur blockbuster, which is returning to cinemas this week for its 30th anniversary, he claimed to be “completely baffled” as to why he was chosen for the role.
“Jurassic Park was a really good example of why there is no substitute for going out to the movies,” he said.
In his memoir published earlier this year, ‘Did I Ever Tell You This’, the 75-year-old recalled his spending his formative years in Northern Ireland, until the family moved from Omagh to New Zealand when he was seven.
“There’s something about being in Ireland, whether it’s the north or south, that always makes me feel comfort and weirdly at home.
“It’s not my home, but it feels like I’m at home and I’ve never worked out whether that’s in my DNA or (because) I spent time there as a child. I’d need to shrink to pull that one apart,” said Neill.
Sam Neill in Jurassic Park
Neill, who in his early years went by Nigel, recalls his move away from Northern Ireland as a confusing and difficult time, admitting that in New Zealand, he struggled to fit in.
Aged 11, he decided to swap “Nigel” to his cooler nickname “Sam”, hoping to have a better time at school than he had to date as a stuttering young boy.
Neill’s career started as a young boy on stage, where his stutter would disappear, but looking back he believes he didn’t just act on stage during those early years.
“You realise that being very British, in a New Zealand context, wasn’t useful,” he remembers.
“Having that accent… you just don’t want to be different when you’re small, and so you learn to be something else, and that’s kind of acting in a way. My first performance is becoming a New Zealander I think.”
Speaking about his recent memoir, the actor shared that it was written during a ‘dark time’ as he battled cancer while self-isolating during the pandemic. He admitted feeling like he was “working against the clock” as he recorded stories he’d like his children and grandchildren to know.
“In the course of writing all this I had to sort of self-examine a bit. And I realised that there is a sort of duality in me: one is Nigel, who is kind of a British persona, I think. And the other one is Sam, who is from the other side of the world,” admitted Neil.
The NI-born actor also opened up about the recently resurfaced footage of his 1986 screen test for James Bond.
He said: “It was one rather excruciating moment in a long career, but people keep asking me about the Bond thing.
“I can only say I’m very glad I’m not an ex-Bond.”
The actor who is now in remission is getting ready to star in the new series ‘Apples Never Fall’ based on a novel by the Big Little Lies writer, Liane Moriarty.
He added: “[It] would never cross my mind to retire”.
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