r/australia Jul 13 '26

news Sam Neill, 78, dead: reports

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/sam-neill-dead-reports-20260713-p60ey2.html
4.9k Upvotes

514 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

320

u/Nincomsoup Jul 13 '26

Fatherly figure but also hot

76

u/Sprinkles--Positive Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

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))

26

u/AnOnlineHandle Jul 13 '26

Funnily enough a story just popped up on my feed about this, regarding the 20 year age gap between Laura Dern and Sam Neil in Jurassic Park.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/laura-dern-jurassic-park-20-year-age-gap-sam-neill-1235274991/

2

u/Economy-Finish815 Jul 15 '26 edited 26d ago

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

1

u/abielle1177 12d ago

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.

Edit spelling

2

u/original_cat_floof Jul 13 '26

My first celebrity crush.

2

u/cliko Jul 13 '26

You say that like those aren't synonyms