{"id":538814,"date":"2026-07-13T06:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/538814\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T06:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T06:58:10","slug":"sam-neill-jurassic-park-actor-dies-aged-78","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/538814\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Neill, Jurassic Park actor, dies aged 78"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The year that sums up Sam Neill&#8217;s versatile talentspublished at 07:38 BST<\/p>\n<p>07:38 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1359cc41-c3af-46bf-9f71-3791b0fd9c8e.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Colin Paterson<br \/>Entertainment Correspondent, BBC News<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sam Neill In Jurassic Park\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/43448465-5cb3-4b1c-880f-9dbfbddb2186.jpg.webp\"  width=\"2102\" height=\"1182\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sam Neill played Dr Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park films<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">If we look at one year, it kind of sums up Sam Neill.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In 1993, he starred as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, this enormous blockbuster. I showed it to my own boys for the first time last month, and it really still stands up as a film and truly terrified them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The other film he made in 1993 was The Piano, directed by Jane Campion. It could not have been a more different film. It won the Palme d&#8217;or, Holly Hunter played a mute woman, and it was set in New Zealand. Sam Neill&#8217;s role utterly had to change in the last act of the film because he&#8217;s the devoted husband at the start, then he just rips into this nightmarish character.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">One of his breakthrough roles was filmed in Britain right at the start of the 1980s &#8211; I think people forget he was Damien in the third Omen film.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That&#8217;s how how versatile this guy was. He could do the whole gamut, and that&#8217;s why there&#8217;ll be a real outpouring today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The year that sums up Sam Neill&#8217;s versatile talentspublished at 07:38 BST 07:38 BST Colin PatersonEntertainment Correspondent, BBC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-538814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}