{"id":553751,"date":"2026-07-31T22:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/553751\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T22:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:38:08","slug":"taika-waititi-sees-death-very-differently-to-other-people-reflects-on-sir-sam-neills-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/553751\/","title":{"rendered":"Taika Waititi sees death \u2018very differently\u2019 to other people, reflects on Sir Sam Neill\u2019s passing"},"content":{"rendered":"
Neill died on July 13, aged 78, from pneumonia.<\/p>\n
But Waititi insisted he knows it won\u2019t be long until he sees his friend and collaborator again.<\/p>\n
He explained: \u201cI see death in a very different way to other people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad that I don\u2019t get to chat with my friend or hang out, but I\u2019ll see him in a bit. I don\u2019t feel like any of this is the end of things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taika Waititi also directed the Wilderpeople, which marked its 10th anniversary in London this week. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
At the event, Waititi also remembered working with Neill \u2013 particularly how \u201cchilled\u201d he was \u201cabout everything\u201d.<\/p>\n
He laughed: \u201cEveryone\u2019s stressing out: Will we make our day? The sun\u2019s going down. Can we get this shot?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guy\u2019s done Jurassic Park, The Piano, Event Horizon, Omen 3. He\u2019s been around so long, doing so many things \u2026 Nothing phased him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was grateful to have someone who was just calm around me. He put things in perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neill had previously told Screen Crush that he had been a fan of Waititi long before he was cast in Hunt for the Wilderpeople.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was already really excited to work with him because he\u2019s such a new and original voice in indie cinema, and I\u2019d like to be in some way associated with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neill died on July 13, aged 78, from pneumonia. But Waititi insisted he knows it won\u2019t be long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[634,9828,183948,156,259980,111,139,69,90,193,45641,384,6653,18460,29647,8485,29715,61,303,37105],"class_list":["post-553751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-death","tag-different","tag-differently","tag-entertainment","tag-neills","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-other","tag-passing","tag-people","tag-reflects","tag-sam","tag-sees","tag-sir","tag-taika","tag-to","tag-very","tag-waititi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}