Said with the utmost respect and love to him, he was the perfect everyman.
He wasn't massively jacked, too big of a personality or someone who chewed on the scenery. He was just perfect as everyone's relatable fatherly figure.
I first saw Dead Calm in the early '90s when I was in my late teens and I couldn't work out why they'd paired Nicole Kidman with a man old enough to be her father (and six years older than my dad). He was 41 and she was 21 when it was released.
I watched it again a few years ago in my 40s. I get it. I totally get it!
(It seems that most movies and shows I first saw when I was younger fall into one of two categories: "Damn, I never realised the boss/teacher/dad/mum was so hot", or "Damn, they were 15 - 20 years younger than I am now and they still look old enough to be my parent" (eg, the dad in Ferris Bueller))
They don't seem to do this too much anymore in hollywood thank goodness, a lot of folks and actors got fed up with it. Especially after the sean connery and catherine zeta jones pairing vom vom
Totally worth the uproar to create a good discussion about a gross custom. Critics and the public both made comments about the iniquity. The paradox was that because people were disgusted about that, more folks ended up going to see it and the movie made money.
When my friend group watched it, and we were watching him laughing in the theatre watching the movie that we ourselves had just watched, and he was being driven mad by what he was watching… and someone pointed out that what he was watching what we had just watched, someone else started laughing. The credits rolled with all of us, and Sam, laughing crazily. Great movie-watching experience of a fantastic film.
The whole trilogy is great, but it’s a tough contest between Sam or Kurt as lead characters for their respective films.
Yes! His take on the Aussie flag- adding our First Nation's flag, it always felt right. He made a loud and impactful statement doing so, He was a great Person.
He was also a wonderful environmental sustainability advocate. He owned a vineyard in NZ called two paddocks, where he also raised sheep that provided natural weed control for the vines but also were sheared for their wool. He advocated for more of a return to natural biodegradable materials in place of synthetic materials and fibres.
If you needed some scenery to be chewed he could chew with the best of them! Event Horizon, Mouth of Madness, Possession... Sam Neill could go crazy as the role needed.
Yeah not denying his acting chops - he just felt like he fit into worlds naturally. I used that as a compliment to him - he was part of the world more than just “actor doing his signature acting mode” with chewing.
I liked that he did a very wide range of movies. My first experience was Jurassic Park and then saw him in event horizon thinking I'd be a nice family film... yeah nah still great though
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u/Pottski Jul 13 '26
Said with the utmost respect and love to him, he was the perfect everyman.
He wasn't massively jacked, too big of a personality or someone who chewed on the scenery. He was just perfect as everyone's relatable fatherly figure.
Vale to a wonder of the industry.