Remembering Sam Neill, who railed against 'constipated' anti-LGBTQ+ leaders

This story originally appeared on Out.

Sam Neill, the rugged, versatile actor whose career spanned five decades and whose tousled hair and piercing blue eyes inspired many a crush, has died. He was 78.

Perhaps best known for his three appearances in the blockbuster Jurassic Park and Jurassic World film franchises, Neill was also outspoken about politics down under, from immigration to LGBTQ+ rights. As a straight ally of the LGBTQ+ community, he critiqued Australian politicians in 2016 for failing to enact same sex marriage in the face of overwhelming public support.

Born in Northern Ireland but raised since the age of 7 in New Zealand, the actor died at St. Vincent's Private Hospital on Monday in Sydney, Australia, Variety reported. Just three months ago, Neill declared he was cancer-free, following a four-year battle with blood cancer. He passed away surrounded by family, according to a statement posted on his Instagram. The statement substitutes "whānau" for "family," a Māori word that generally translates as "extended family."

“It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney, Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”

Sam Neill called New Zealand home and maintained both a winery and a farm near his home in Central Otagoa, as Variety reported. He also had a deep, lifelong connection to Australia, often filming there and appearing on Australian television. A decade ago, during an October 2016 TV interview while on a break from filming Thor: Ragnarok on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Neill criticized the Australian parliament's indecisiveness on the issue of same-sex marriage.

"I can't believe we're talking about this at all," he told Nine News Today. "Sixty-four percent of Australians are for marriage equality, most politicians are for marriage equality. I don't think it's any business of anyone's who should get married and who shouldn't. Why don't they just get up and pass the bill? What's the matter with this constipated parliament?"

Marriage equality was enacted in New Zealand in 2013, as The Advocate reported, and made legal in the United States by the Supreme Court in 2015. But it took until December 2017 before it became legal in Australia, a month after a nationwide poll in which 61.6 percent of voters expressed support for passage.

Of the 155 film credits to his name, it was Steven Spielberg’s 1993 science fiction thriller Jurassic Park, the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s bestseller about dinosaurs reintroduced into the modern world, that put Neill in the hat and boots of his best-known character: paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant.

Neill returned as Grant in two of the original feature’s five sequels, Jurassic Park III in 2001 and 2022's Jurassic World Dominion.

“I always think Alan Grant is like an old comfortable pair of boots," Neill told Forbes in 2022. "They’ve seen better days, but they’re really comfortable, and there’s no way you’ll get rid of those. Of course, you put on the comfortable boots and the hat, and you’re back in it," he said.

"What was familiar is what’s true of all the Jurassic films, they’re not dinosaur films," added Neill. "These are films about people, ordinary people like a paleontologist or a mathematician, but in very, very extreme situations. It’s the people that generate these films. You can’t have a movie with a dinosaur as the lead because the dinosaurs have very limited interests. They just want to breed and eat things."

Out gay writer Brett White spoke for a lot of queer men when he penned an homage to Neill in 2018, titled: "I Should Have Known I Was Gay the Moment I Saw Jurassic Park."

"Dr. Alan Grant, Sam Neill, was my very first celebrity crush–and it crushed me like a neon green Jeep under a T. rex’s foot," White wrote. "Except I had no idea that’s what I was feeling, because I (somehow!) would not piece it together that I am a gay man for another twelve years. I should have known I was gay the instant I saw Sam Neill in Jurassic Park. I was totally smitten with this grumpy, child-hating paleontologist, and he quickly became one of my all-time favorite heroes."

According to Variety, Neill is survived by his son Tim from his marriage to his Omen III co-star, actress Lisa Harrow, and by his daughter Elena from his marriage to makeup artist Noriko Watanabe. He also adopted Watanabe’s daughter from her first marriage, and had a son in his early 20s who was put up for adoption, but with whom he reunited in 1994.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2023 to promote his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, Neill spoke about overcoming a stutter that plagued him until his early teens and also revealed his blood cancer diagnosis. He said he did not fear death, but considered it annoying.

“I’m not afraid to die,” he said. “But it would annoy me. Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”