Sam Neill Earns AACTA’s Highest Screen Accolade
When Sam Neill first stepped in front of a camera on a movie set he had no idea he was launching a career that would span five decades and take him around the world,…
Tag Archives: Sam Neill
Sir Edmund Hillary Centenary Celebration: New Zealand actor Sam Neill speaks on bad haircuts
Beloved New Zealand actor, winemaker and friend of Sir Ed, Sam Neill, speaks at the Sir Edmund Hillary Centenary Celebration – a Hillary Centenary Steering Committee (HCSC) event that…
Temuera Morrison & Sam Neill to Star in “The Brighton Miracle”
Temuera Morrison and Sam Neill are to star in “The Brighton Miracle”, a film that portrays “Japan’s famous win over South Africa at the 2015 Rugby World Cup.” The victory is “regarded by many…
Sam Neill Cooks up a Storm in New TV Doco
Few performers can match the easy charm of New Zealander Sam Neill either on camera or off, but he is braced for outrage in response to his latest outing, as presenter of a History…
Jane Campion’s the Piano Still Hits All The Right Notes
“Rereleased after 25 years, this literary work about a mute woman in 19th-century New Zealand remains full of extraordinary images and enigmas,” writes Peter Bradshaw in a review in The…
Sweet Country’s Sam Neill Marks Milestone
As is the case with many a beloved screen actor, everyone has their own mental image of Sam Neill, Karen Han writes for the Village Voice. For some, it’s of the prickly paleontologist Dr…
In the Two Paddocks Man Cave with Sam Neill
Peaky Blinders star Sam Neill speaks to the Financial Times about his New Zealand oasis, Jacinda Ardern and tech titans buying bolt holes against catastrophe. At Two Paddocks, the vineyard and farm which Neill bought…
Actor Sam Neill Stars in His First Western
Sam Neill’s acting career has broken the 80-film barrier. In his most recent film, Sweet Country, the New Zealander plays a missionary making a new life for himself on the Australian frontier in the…
Sam Neill Wants to Ban the Plastic Bag
Actor Sam Neill is the latest recruit on board Greenpeace’s campaign against plastic bags. He joins Dr Jane Goodall and former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark in the quest to ban single-use plastic bags,…
New Zealand’s New Big Thing Is Pinot Noir
New Zealand “was once known merely for crisp, grassy sauvignon blanc wines. No longer,” Elin McCoy writes in a report for Bloomberg. “Actor Sam Neill just finished a six-part television documentary on the voyages of…
Sam Neill Nominated for Another Emmy
A few days out from the Emmy Awards, where Sam Neill, 70, has been nominated in the outstanding narrator category for his work on documentary series Wild New Zealand, the actor showed he was…
Phil Keoghan Captures Essence of NZ in New Show
Phil Keoghan’s 16-year tenure as host of The Amazing Race means he never spends too much time in any given place. But in his off-time from jet setting around the world filming the show’s…
The American Dream is in New Zealand
“What’s the deal with New Zealand?” NBC News correspondent Keith Morrison asks in a recent clip for the network. “It’s become a thing not only to visit but find work, even immigrate to this…
Taika Waititi Tackles Tiny Racists
New Zealand has hauled in its biggest stars in an effort to crack down on rising levels of racism in our famously peaceful South Pacific nation. Hollywood director and New Zealander of the year…
Sam Neill Speaks about Tiny Rowland TV Role
New Zealand actor Sam Neill stars in Channel Nine’s television miniseries about Australian businessman Alan Bond’s life and said he was sure people would enjoy watching the “rollercoaster” ride. “You’re familiar with the story of…
Clive James on Sam Neill’s Richly Sane Career
“Performers do best to do their best every time. By no paradox, it is easier to maintain this attitude if you are not being treated as a deity,” Australian broadcaster and critic Clive James…
How the Outback Shaped Michael Chamberlain’s Life
Christchurch-born Michael Chamberlain, who waged a decades-long battle to prove his baby daughter was killed by a dingo in Australia’s most notorious case of injustice has died in New South Wales. He was 72. Lindy…
Sam Neill: From Heartthrob To Vintner
Sam Neill of New Zealand’s Central Otago winery Two Paddocks, who is better known as an actor told the Financial Times’ Jancis Robinson that he “puts all his energy “into making beautiful…
New BBC Doco Explores Our Mythical Islands
“In New Zealand, you’ll be interested to learn, there are more species of penguin than anywhere else in the world,” the Independent’s deputy managing editor Sean O’Grady writes in a preview of BBC Two…
Wilderpeople Lavished with Praise in US
“Every once in a while, a small, unheralded film comes along, so smart and funny, such a pleasure to experience, you can’t believe your luck. Hunt for the Wilderpeople is such a film,” Los…
Sam Neill Cuts to the Chase
In a Q&A with the Guardian, New Zealand actor Sam Neill talks about his father’s war medals, the Fifa film and a secret about his real name. Born in Northern Ireland, Neill, 68, grew up…
The Kiwi Film You Need To See
The New Zealand smash hit Hunt for the Wilderpeople has knocked Batman vs Superman off number one and has beat Boy to become the highest grossing film of all time in New Zealand. According…
Sam Neill Says NZ Cinema like Nothing Else on Earth
In a career of almost unparalleled versatility, Sam Neill’s latest role in Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople finds him returning to his roots. Elle Hunt tracks the New Zealander down in Sydney for…
‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ Sundance Cast Interview
Have a laugh with the ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ cast (Taika Waititi, Sam Neill, Rhys Darby and Julian Dennison) as they stop by the Sundance studio to discuss their…
Hunt for the Wilderpeople Official Trailer
Have a look at the official trailer for Hunt for the Wilderpeople. A story about a national manhunt when a kid and his foster uncle go missing in the…
Director Taika Waititi’s New Film “A Love Letter to 1970s New Zealand Cinema”
Taika Waititi spoke with Vice about his new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which stars Julian Dennison, Sam Neill, Rachel House, Oscar Kightley and Rhys Darby and is based on Wild Pork and Watercress…
Sam Neill to Play Texan Patriarch in TV’s The Son
New Zealand actor Sam Neill will star in the AMC television network drama The Son, playing the patriarch of a Texas family in a multigenerational story of the clan’s rise and fall. Production on the…
Hunt for the Wilderpeople is Perfectly Balanced
Taika Waititi’s film adaptation of Barry Crump’s Wild Pork and Watercress, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, which made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, is a “deliciously good time at the movies,” according to…
Sundance Welcomes Taika Waititi’s Latest
Taika Waititi’s new film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a dramatisation of Barry Crump’s 1986 novel, Wild Pork and Watercress, has premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Boy director Waititi returns with the road comedy…
With a Little Help from Sam Neill’s Friends
Hollywood star Sam Neill may originally hail from Northern Ireland, but he has just confessed to having a little difficulty mastering an Ulster accent for television drama series Peaky Blinders – despite help from…
Sam Neill Remembers Fallen Family in Why Anzac
In one pivotal scene from Sam Neill’s thoughtful and moving examination of the Anzac legend, the ABC documentary Why Anzac, he approaches his grandfather’s grave in Lijssenthoek Cemetery, Belgium for the first time. “This is…
Roger Donaldson Remembers New Zealand Beginnings
Before he became one of Hollywood’s most dependable big-movie helmers with hits for stars such as Eastwood, Pacino, Cruise, Costner, Hopkins, Statham, Brosnan, Roger Donaldson, 69, literally helped invent the film industry in New…
George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight – Sam Neill
Actor Sam Neill visits the George Stroumboulopoulos show in Vancouver to talk about everything from Princess Diana to Jurassic Park with George.
Sam Neill Says We Can All Identify with Working Class Crims
Ask Peaky Blinders star New Zealander Sam Neill to account for the success of the BBC’s six-parter about Birmingham razor gangs – an odd but winning mix of industrial grime, street violence, catwalk-friendly fashion…
St. John Regular Sam Neill Bemoans the French Wine List
Actor Sam Neill has been frequenting London’s St. John restaurant for nearly 20 years, and while he’s obsessed with the place his greatest passion is reserved for New Zealand vineyards. “Neill is an oenophile and…
Neill and Brown Bring Wonderful Wit to Crime Caper
Sam Neill, the Irish born New Zealand actor, joins Australian Bryan Brown on television in “classy new crime caper” Old School. The TV drama is described as “a kind of buddy series crossed with hard-nosed…
Darby’s Sexy Leg Confuses Variety
Rhys Darby’s new eight-episode mockumentary Short Poppies is being praised for its “whimsical and winsome” charms ahead of its debut on American screens on Netflix. The LA Times’ Robert Lloyd describes the series as…
Metaphorical Moustache Twirling as Villain Otto Luger
“From fleeing dinosaurs in Jurassic Park to Oscar-lauded films like The Piano and historical dramas like The Tudors, Sam Neill has treated his acting life like a grand escapade,” Richard Whittaker writes for the…
Neill Content to Be in Two Worlds
In the latest of a series of opinion pieces for British political and cultural magazine the Spectator, actor and vigneron Sam Neill argues that “actors are allowed to do other things other than act.” “Increasingly…
Fraser a Classical Dance Convert with New Film Giselle
New Zealand director and playwright Toa Fraser admits he wasn’t much of a dance fan before setting out to make Giselle, a new full-length film of the 1841 Romantic ballet of the same name,…
Neill Recalls Camping Catastrophes and Culinary Havens
Star of 1920s-set gangster drama Peaky Blinders, New Zealand actor Sam Neill, talks about culinary havens, camping catastrophes, and fishing in Scotland in a Telegraph travel piece. “This year, I’ve been to New York, Sydney,…
Why Hollywood is Staying in New Zealand
“From James Cameron’s organic farm to Emmy contender Top of the Lake, the idyllic island nation continues to thrive 12 years after Frodo and Co. put it on the movie location map,” The Hollywood…
Differences of Time on and off Set
Actor and winemaker Sam Neill, 65, talks to the South China Morning Post about corks, cows and why action films are duller than they look. “Making good films and good wines are both very…
Pinot Noir Our New Obsession
“They don’t call is the only grape that generates such enthusiasm,” actor and winemaker Sam Neill said at the Pinot Noir…
Back to His Roots Playing Cop
Sam Neill plays Belfast police chief C.I. Campbell in new BBC gangster drama, Peaky Blinders, which is currently shooting in Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool. While Neill is one of the more well-known New Zealand…
Wines Making the Cut
Cinema celebrities New Zealanders Michael Seresin and Sam Neill are two of a growing number of filmmakers turning their knowledge of a good drop into winemaking. The Australian’s Michael Bodey brings his “critical faculties…
Hollywood Star Cellaring Well
An interview with New Zealand actor and vigneron Sam Neill has been Huffington Post freelancer Mike Matthews’ most viewed wine blog entry. To celebrate Matthews’ blog’s birthday, the November 2011 piece, about Neill’s vineyard Two Paddocks,…
Downtime In The Trailer
Actor Sam Neill, who is starring in the US television series Alcatraz, has convinced his famous friends to compile Top 10 lists of their favourite songs, publishing them on the website for his boutique winery,
Sam Neill Extols NZ Pinot Noir
New Zealand actor Sam Neill pioneered pinot noir in his homeland. In 2012, Neill’s pinot noir won gold at the London International Wine and Spirit Competition. ‘In a matter of about 30 years, we’ve come…
With A Cryptic Brusqueness
New Zealand actor Sam Neill, 64, stars in Lost creator J. J. Abrams’ drama series Alcatraz, which premiered on American channel Fox this month. “The premise: The orderly closing of the prison on Alcatraz in 1963 was…
Alcatraz role for Neill
Actor Sam Neill has a role in the upcoming Fox pilot series Alcatraz which chronicles the efforts of a team of FBI agents tracking down a group of missing prisoners and guards who reappear…
Tasmanian tiger hunt
Actor Sam Neill stars alongside Willem Dafoe and Frances O’Connor in the Australian psychological thriller The Hunter which began production in Tasmania in late October. The Daniel Nettheim-directed film, based on the book by…
Sam Neill Brings Thomas Jefferson to Life
Growing up in New Zealand, Sam Neill was aware of Thomas Jefferson merely as “writer of the Declaration of Independence, architect, politician, two-time U.S. president and big cheese on Mount Rushmore.” (5February 2)
Neill the Menace
Sam Neill recently starred as the “diabolically” corrupt president of a human blood farming corporation alongside Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe in the Spierig Brothers sci-fi/horror film Daybreakers. Neill “dominates the screen”…
Neill the ruthless
Actor Sam Neill stars in the made-for-television Canada-China co-production of Iron Road as ruthless Canadian railroad baron Alfred Nichol. The historical mini-series purports to tell the story of the thousands of Chinese labourers who…
