{"id":689971,"date":"2026-07-13T21:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689971\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T21:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T21:13:08","slug":"sam-neills-final-interview-id-like-to-think-that-in-life-im-a-goodie-sam-neill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/689971\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Neill\u2019s final interview: \u2018I\u2019d like to think that, in life, I\u2019m a goodie\u2019 | Sam Neill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you consult a canine expert about how best to regress into a dog in Dean Spanley? WomanofWolfville<\/a>
There was no consultation. I\u2019ve studied dogs \u2013 wittingly or unwittingly \u2013 over the years, so the portrayal came from that.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had dogs all my life. I understand them better than I do people. I had a Staffy for 15 years. They are the most expressive of dogs \u2013 every flicker of guilt or pleasure is written all over their faces. If I had to leave, my dog wouldn\u2019t take it well. I\u2019d pack in secret \u2013 if she saw a suitcase, she\u2019d plunge into despair. When I returned, she\u2019d walk right past me and shun me as punishment. I\u2019d think: \u201cAre you ever going to forgive me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Neill in Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016). Photograph: Kane Skennar\/Piki Films\/Allstar<\/p>\n

She was a rescue dog called Fire, which we had to keep because it was all she\u2019d answer to. Fine at home \u2013 \u201cCome here, Fire\u201d \u2013 but in the park, you\u2019d be yelling \u201cFire!\u201d like it was the end of the world.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d fly with me between New Zealand and Australia. It cost more to fly her in a cage than it did the rest of us. A friend who worked in the airport ground staff heard an announcement over the intercom: \u201cFlight 8497 to Queenstown is delayed. Sam Neill\u2019s dog has taken a shit in the back.\u201d<\/p>\n

How was it working with Robin Williams in Bicentennial Man? stephenw1979<\/a>
I loved Robin dearly. I hadn\u2019t seen the film in nearly 30 years, but it came up on Netflix the other day, so I looked at it out of curiosity. It\u2019s strange to see yourself as a much younger man whose hair they had to grey. More than anything, it reminded me how delightful Robin was.<\/p>\n

His constant humour was almost an affliction \u2013 he couldn\u2019t help it. It would take us hours to get on set because he knew every crew member by name \u2013 there must have been 200 of them \u2013 and he\u2019d fix on one person and riff endlessly. It was a phenomenon to watch.<\/p>\n

Bicentennial Man (1999). Photograph: Columbia Pictures\/Allstar<\/p>\n

There was another side to him too. The explanations for his death never quite account for the terrible sadness he carried. You could sense it in quieter moments, just the two of us running our lines in the trailer. Then we\u2019d step outside and he\u2019d light up the party.<\/p>\n

Which is more challenging \u2013 reacting to special effects you can\u2019t see like in Jurassic Park, or when the focus is entirely on the tension, like in Dead Calm? <\/a>Ludders<\/a>
Neither are easy. On Jurassic Park, there was plenty to see \u2013 enormous puppet creatures built by Stan Winston. CGI was coming into its own, while animatronics had reached their zenith. The combination worked beautifully \u2013 you believe the puppets because of the CGI, and the CGI because of the puppets.<\/p>\n

I was particularly fond of the T rex. When he attacks the children through the sunroof of the Jurassic Park<\/a> truck, there were dozens of people operating him. I was more concerned for the T rex than for the children. Sometimes he\u2019d lunge too far, hit the truck, half a dozen teeth would fall out, and we\u2019d have to stand down for the dinosaur dentist to repair his fangs.<\/p>\n

Someone was taking the piss out of me the other day, and did the glasses take-off thing. Spielberg didn\u2019t ask for that. I just thought it was a good way to express complete astonishment \u2013 though it\u2019s counterintuitive when you think about it. When you stare up into the bright sky, you ought to really put on your sunglasses, not take them off.<\/p>\n

Jurassic Park (1993). Photograph: UNIVERSAL\/Allstar<\/p>\n

Do you enjoy playing the baddie, like you did in The Piano? GasparGarcao<\/a>
Yes. I\u2019d like to think that, in life, I\u2019m a goodie, so the chance to play a baddie can be a lot of fun. I loved playing Major Campbell in Peaky Blinders because he had a very sad dimension, so I felt slightly sorry for him. But I don\u2019t feel sorry for the other very influential bad guys in positions of power on the planet as we speak.<\/p>\n

What does an animal have to do to get a celebrity name on your farm? LouisLou<\/a>
Sometimes it\u2019s to annoy people; sometimes to flatter them. Helena Bonham Carter is very happy to be a cow. She\u2019s had 16 calves now. She\u2019s up for it, if nothing else. I have two new kunekune piglets. Amy Adams came to visit, so I thought: \u201cIt\u2019s time this pig had a name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam Neill with his pig Angelica. Photograph: Fiona Goodall\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Amy Adams the pig is not, by any standard, a pretty thing, so not very flattering. My rooster, Michael Fassbender, is usually fairly noisy in the morning, though he\u2019s quiet today. He has a bit of a limp at the moment, which is ironic, because I tend to refer to him as my big cock.<\/p>\n

Why did you decide to switch from your actual first name \u2013 Nigel? PickleMan<\/a>
Changing it has been the best decision I\u2019ve ever made. Now there is \u2013 God save us \u2013 the vague prospect of one of the worst Nigels ever becoming prime minister. Exceptions prove the rule \u2013 Havers, Planer, Davenport. Mostly, Nigels are fools.<\/p>\n

No one has called their child Nigel in the UK for years. I\u2019m not surprised. It\u2019s the wettest name ever. There\u2019s a pub up north somewhere where they have a Nigel reunion, where these poor Nigels get together and provide mutual comfort. Maybe I should go and speak.<\/p>\n

I got out of the Nigel game when I was 11, because my best friend was called Nigel, so it was pragmatic. My brother and sister persist in calling me Nigel, but that\u2019s about the end of it. If I\u2019d stayed with Nigel Neill, I don\u2019t think I would have had a film career.<\/p>\n

Who do you support when Ireland play the All Blacks? PeteTheBeat<\/a>
There\u2019s something about sport in general that has become so \u2013 I don\u2019t know \u2013 unsporting. It\u2019s so commercial. I don\u2019t want to cheer for a business. I\u2019d choose Ireland because they\u2019re the underdog. Everyone\u2019s the underdog to the All Blacks, until they play South Africa. Then the All Blacks become the underdog, and I\u2019m the first to get behind them.<\/p>\n

Jurassic Park (1993). Photograph: Moviestore Collection Ltd\/Alamy<\/p>\n

How have you changed your diet since your cancer diagnosis? janeytinspain<\/a>
When I left hospital, I was looking forward to going to some good restaurants. I said to my nurse: \u201cWhat should I be eating?\u201d She said: \u201cSam, eat whatever you feel like.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was on chemo for five years. You can\u2019t eat at all for two or three days after you\u2019ve had chemo. So now, I eat whatever I want. I grow a lot of fruit on the farm \u2013 and I\u2019ve just had my breakfast, which involved stewed plums, stewed apricots, and stewed rhubarb, all of which I grow down in the veggie garden.<\/p>\n

Would you have honestly turned down the role of Bond? RoyWilliams<\/a>
I suspect I would have done it \u2013 because I was bullied into doing the bloody screen test by my agent, Margaret \u2013 God rest her soul. I\u2019m also aware that I wouldn\u2019t have enjoyed my life so much if I was an ex-Bond. That\u2019s what people would say when I went for my morning coffee. \u201cLook \u2013 it\u2019s what\u2019s-his-name, who used to be James Bond?\u201d \u201cYeah, he was the one I never really liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you know what\u2019s happened to the mythical missing footage from Event Horizon? The_Mighty_Clam<\/a> and clickclickdrone<\/a>
There\u2019s quite a bit more material \u2013 a number of scenes where you don\u2019t know where the threat is. When they\u2019re doing thrillers or horror films, people overlook: it\u2019s what you don\u2019t see that\u2019s scary. If you can see the monster, you can deal with it. But if you can\u2019t, who knows what\u2019s going to happen? When I first saw the theatrical cut, I was surprised that we never had time for those eerie, darker moments. How they went missing permanently, I have no idea.<\/p>\n

You have such a recognisable face. Is this part of your success? AmongstTheWaves<\/a>
No. If anything, I\u2019ve had to overcome the ordinariness of my appearance.<\/p>\n

Sam Neill near his vineyard in New Zealand earlier this year. Photograph: Aina J Khan<\/p>\n

Do you remember being invited to your college to receive an honorary tie and sending the entire school into fits of laughter by saying how much you hated it there? Thatsover<\/a>
I was a boarder in New Zealand from the age of nine, which was rough, but I survived. I remember talking to those boys, looking at all these prefects and the First XI and First XV who all had fancy blazers with stripes, which I never had because I was never good at anything. I pointed to all the important boys and said: \u201cLook, you\u2019ve done all right. I\u2019m not interested in you. It\u2019s everyone that doesn\u2019t have a special blazer that I\u2019m interested in. You\u2019re the ones that\u2019ll make something of your lives.\u201d Being made head prefect, you\u2019d never get over that. The rest of your life would be a disappointment.
If it gets too hot for pinot noir, are you emotionally prepared to start making chardonnay? MissJJ<\/a>
We had two acres of pinot noir at our Fusilier vineyard which has never done terribly well, so this season we pulled it up to plant chardonnay. In a couple of years, we\u2019ll have our own organic chardonnay ready to go. I want to live long enough to pour my first chardonnay, so I\u2019m looking forward to that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you consult a canine expert about how best to regress into a dog in Dean Spanley? WomanofWolfvilleThere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}