VIDEO: His Brilliant Careers (updated) | Sam Neill

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: G 'day. Back in 2020, Australian Story caught up with the much-loved actor Sam Neil and he let us in on his other brilliant career as a winemaker. Sam had unexpectedly found himself a social media superstar during COVID, but after that, his life took a surprising turn. He is now living with a rare and deadly disease, and before the actors' strike closed down Hollywood, Sam allowed us to make a return visit.

SAM NEILL: One of the things I've learnt, which I probably knew already, is how important it is to live in the moment.

(Backstage at Sydney Writers' Festival)

Bryan: How's it work? Do you go on first?

BRYAN BROWN: We don't ruminate on mortality. The pair of us, we're 76, I don't think he's ever gone, 'Bryan, we've had a wonderful life, haven't we?' No. But he's had to deal with something big.

Sam: After you've done that, I'll thank them all for coming.

Bryan: You'll thank what?

Sam: I'll thank them for coming.

Bryan: Who?

Sam: The audience!

BRYAN BROWN: It must be a terrible weight, you know? 'Is this the end?'.

Sam: Let me ask you a question, if I haven't sent you one, would you have bought it?

Bryan: Oh mate, I'd have bought ten!

Sam: Such a liar!

BRYAN BROWN: It didn't stop him, you know, being Sam. And of course, you're going to poke fun at each other. You certainly are not going to be sacred about each other or anything.

Sam: Scary.

Presenter: Please welcome the incredible, Mr Sam Neill.

(Audience clapping)

SAM NEILL: I'm not in any way frightened of dying that, it doesn't worry. It's never worried me from the beginning. But I would be annoyed. I'd be annoyed because there are things I still want to do.

Very irritating, dying. But I'm not afraid of it.

(Onstage at Sydney Writers' festival)

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: A memoir. Why and why now?

SAM NEILL: I'm not I'm not an introspective person. I don't look back with any great eagerness, but I was forced to look back and take evaluation of my life and it's an accidental memoir, I suppose you'd call it.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: I thought, there's no way he'll get an audience. And I'm right, there's a couple of seats empty up there.

SAM NEILL: I would never have imagined that I'd still be working. But I don't seem to be stopping. There are few things more enjoyable than actually rocking up on a set. I've made three Jurassic films now and in 2020 we were filming Jurassic World Dominion in England.

(Behind the scenes on Jurassic World Dominion)

Do you have memorabilia from the first movie that you took with you?

There wasn't really memorabilia. I liked the boots, they were comfortable and I kept the boots and I found the boots. No!

SAM NEILL: I was reunited with my old friends, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern. And they're a real crack up.

(Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum singing at piano with Laura Dern in background)

Hey she's so sweet etc…

Coming down the street.

SAM NEILL: Sort of peak Covid year we were locked up in a hotel. We saw nobody else for 4 or 5 months. We just had each other for company, really. So we, we made a point of entertaining each other as best we could, and it was good fun.

(Singing)

These precious days, I'll spend with you…

SAM NEILL: It took two years for the movie to come out and I was sent over to LA in 2022 to do a weekend's publicity. And while I was there, my glands were up on my neck. Back in Sydney I was given one of those scans where they sort of do this, you know, like when you're pregnant, they wave it over your tummy and the nurse dropped her piece of equipment and ran out of the room.

TIM NEIL, SON: He comes back to New Zealand, it was wonderful to have him back for the first time in two years. Within an hour, we got the phone call from his doctor, and I hear him say, well, when's the, you know, do I need to start the treatment? Do I need to come back to Sydney?

DR ORLY LAVEE, HAEMATOLOGIST: It's always a difficult conversation, particularly if you're not face to face with someone. What we found was a cancer, a particularly rare kind of lymphoma which is a non-Hodgkin's type of lymphoma. But it is quite rare and it's quite an aggressive tumour that, if not treated, can cause major problems very quickly.

TIM NEIL, SON: When he hung the phone up and we sat down, and we had a little bit of a cry together. It was supposed to be a happy day. He didn't get to stay.

SAM NEILL: I was in really a fight for my life. And yeah, everything was, everything was a new world and a rather alarming world, I'd have to say, yeah. I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapies which are, which are brutal.

TIM NEIL, SON: Yeah, that was the first night when I arrived in Sydney.

TIM NEIL, SON: I ended up going out in a few months to go visit him and I was shocked, and I broke down and I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he was giving me a hard time for being upset about it and saying I was stressing him out, but I was going, 'What are you talking about, Dad? Like, you know, I'm just, I care, I can't not care'.

SAM NEILL: There were times in the last year where I had to look at myself in the mirror and I wasn't a pretty sight. I was stripped of any kind of dignity.

TIM NEIL, SON: He was in the middle of his first stage of the chemo, and he was supposed to have heard from his doctors. And I kept saying, 'Dad, you know, no news is good news. No news is good news. They'll call you, they'll let you know'.. And, and he started getting happy. He was dancing around the kitchen a bit. And then suddenly got a call, and he came back and said, 'Oh, Timbo It's not just back, it's back and it's worse'. So that was pretty, that was harsh, man. That was. That was pretty brutal.

DR ORLY LAVEE, HAEMATOLOGIST: I was surprised. I was obviously concerned as he was that his disease was behaving in such an aggressive way. The tumour started to outsmart the drugs before we even got through the first regimen.

SAM NEILL: I didn't know really how long I had to live. And I thought, yeah, I should probably write something down for my children, my grandchildren, because I may not be here in a couple of months and it would be good for them to have a sense of me, you know, and and some of the things that I've done.

(Backstory)

SAM NEILL: I think in many cases, one is doomed to become an actor from a very early age, and that's often because you've been displaced in some sort of way, and we were taken from the UK as children back to New Zealand.

MICHAEL NEILL, BROTHER: My little brother was born on the kitchen table in the house that we lived in in Northern Ireland. My father returned to New Zealand in 1955, bringing the family with him. I was 12 at the time. My little brother would have been seven.

SAM NEILL: It was like a different planet. Every plant seemed different. All my friends were completely, they sounded different, they acted differently. I was a very British shy boy who stuttered very badly and in a New Zealand playground where these things were a liability. My name was also Nigel. That didn't sit well. I was easily bullied and picked on, and I survived that by, I think, becoming a New Zealander. I learned how to perform as something else. I was in the shadows quite a bit, probably observing what other people were doing, how they act, how they stand, how they behave towards each other. And I think that was a very formative experience for me.

MICHAEL NEILL, BROTHER: Nigel became Sam because his two best friends at school were also called Nigel, and none of them really liked the name and he decided to call himself Sam.

SAM NEILL: I wasn't very good at school, I have to say. I remember in little dramas at school. And walking on stage and thinking, I feel really good, I'm really enjoying this. And then you'd get a laugh, and you think this is really the best moment of my life to this point. I got a really moth eaten, arts degree. I had no visible talent that I was aware of. I never went to drama school. There was no drama school to go to. So I've just had to learn on the job and watch good people.

MICHAEL NEILL, BROTHER: To begin with, I think our father was not terribly happy with this propensity for acting. And he used to keep saying, when's that damn boy going to get a proper career?

SAM NEILL: I got picked up by Roger Donaldson and Ian Mune, who were making the first feature film that had been made in New Zealand for 17 years and the first colour feature ever. And it had me as the lead in it.

(Sleeping Dogs clip)

What the bloody hell you doing? Bloody idiot, get off the rock!

Isn't this what you want? Isn't this what you do?

First thing you gotta to do is learn to do what you bloody well told.

If doing what I'm told means taking orders from you Boran, then you can stick it!

MARGARET FINK, PRODUCER: I was about to produce My Brilliant Career, and we'd been looking for the male lead for a long time, and I saw Sam in Sleeping Dogs, and I was absolutely transfixed. It was an instinct and completely instantaneous. And I just knew we had our leading man.

(My Brilliant Career clip)

I thought we should get married

Well, what a handsome proposal, how could anyone say no?

How dare you.

SAM NEILL: I feel I'm more in debt to Australia than Australia is to me. That completely changed my life. And I found myself in Sydney which was the most exciting place I'd ever seen. I'd been to London and Europe, but Sydney was different. It was a very interesting time to be here. So many good filmmakers.

(Australian film industry documentary clip)

Action!

Documentary Narrator: Suddenly Australia is telling itself it has a film industry again. We can make films just as well as anyone else.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: In the late 70s, suddenly there was an emphasis on making Australian film telling, telling culturally significant stories.

(Breaker Morant clip)

What's a pagan?

Its somebody who doesn't believe there is a divine being dispensing justice to mankind

I'm a pagan too.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: We were both lucky enough to be involved in a couple of projects that the world really took notice of. Him with My Brilliant Career and playing the lead in it and me doing Breaker Morant and having a wonderful part in that. Where we really met and became friends was at a film festival in Sorento in Italy, where they showed a lot of Australian movies. We were young fellows and so that friendship started then and pretty much just continued for 40 years. He's a lucky bloke.

(Sam and Bryan sitting on couch)

Bryan: You're a water man you went for a kayak down there, king of the water, then got caught underneath the ramp, twisted over this way, while everyone's watching you.

Sam: I was stuck underneath there.

Bryan: The only bad thing about that was everyone thought it was me.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Sam is someone I only have to be me in front of and same with him.

Sam: Why is it that's its only my humiliations that you remember, you don't remember anything good that I've done.

Bryan: That thing with Sean Connery, Hunt for the…Another Hunt for the..

SAM NEILL: If someone was to say who's, who's your best friend, it would have to be that idiot. We've been very close for a very long time and implicitly trust each other.

(Clip from Dirty Deeds)

Now this is what happens – you piss off and you don't get here for another 5 minutes, understand.

But…

Don't but me.

I said no fighting in the streets Barry.

The mongrel tried to kill me!

(Bryan to Sam on couch)

Bryan: Bruce Beresford puts me in his movies just to get shot, I got shot in Money Movers I got shot in Breaker Morant , maybe it's my western suburbs upbringing

Sam: You're really good at criminals.

SAM NEILL: He's a bit like a brother from another mother, except I got the looks and the brains, obviously.

You've just foretold my death, is that it?

Yes.

MARGARET FINK, PRODUCER: Sam has had a lot of work overseas. He's magnetic. There's something else I could never quite to put it bluntly put my finger on and it, he's actually sexy, so perfect leading man.

(Clip from Reilly, Ace of Spies)

Reilly...

SAM NEILL: My career did kind of morph into an international career.

Welcome back, old man.

SAM NEILL: But I've always returned to cinema over here. and some of I think my best work is being done here.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Dead Calm came along, that Phil Noyce directed. Then he got to play Michael Chamberlain in the Fred Schepsi movie Evil Angels.

(Evil Angels clip)

I don't know what God wants anymore.

(Awards show clip)

Presenter: And the winner is Sam Neill for Evil Angels.

Sam: Occasionally if you are very lucky you get to work on something with which you are proud and I'm very proud of this film.

SAM NEILL: By the time we got to 1984. I'd saved a bit of money, and I bought some land in Central Otago. This was always the land of my dreams. This is where we came for holidays when I was a kid. You know, I love this like no other part of the world.

MICHAEL NEILL, BROTHER: We'd go camping every summer, usually in Central Otago. And oddly enough, when we were driving up there, Dad would always be saying, I can't think why people don't grow grapes here, it looks like ideal grape growing country. I think that must have always stayed with my brother.

SAM NEILL: I realised that people were starting to grow Pinot Noir. You know, the wine that I loved most in the world. So here we are, it's mid-winter its freezing cold and we are here at first paddock our original vineyard which we planted in 1993. Look at that. Completely and utterly delicious, and it's been four weeks fermenting, this is the last bin and it's about to be pressed.

It's nearly 30 years now I've been in the business of making wine, of producing wine. I love my professional working life as an actor, but I equally love my life as part of the winemaking community, of part of an agricultural community, as being part of the cycle of nature.

(Sam and Dean looking at barrels at vineyard)

Sam: My blood pressure might be a little low I want you to elevate blood pressure a little bit by telling me how many barrels I bought this year.

Dean: You purchased 22 new barrels.

Sam: How much a barrel?

Dean: 800 euro.

DEAN SHAW, WINEMAKER: I don't think this is a hobby anymore. Possibly started off that way. Now it's terribly serious, deadly serious at times. There's a lot of collaboration that goes on and a lot of humour and a lot of hard work.

SAM NEILL: Winemaking is so many things. It's chemistry, it's biology, it's horticulture and it's also a kind of alchemy. You know, there's a kind of magic involved.

(Walking through vineyard)

Sam: This is good isn't it.

Dean: Yeah, good size plant. It's going to be a nice 80-100 gram bunch.

Sam: This is looking encouraging, suns up a little bit.

TIM NEILL-HARROW, SON: I know that he's happiest when he's when he's back on the vineyard. I think it's his legacy. I think it's his it's come full circle and that what started as a what if is now a, it's very much a concrete massive part of his life. I'd hazard to say that that acting comes second to his to his winemaking now to him.

SAM NEILL: I do have friends that are stars. I wouldn't swap my life for theirs. I can go into Clyde, you know, my local town, have a cup of coffee. No, one worries me. I don't need security. I don't need an entourage. I just live like everybody else. That is a priceless thing. Life's much more, much simpler in not being a celebrity. I don't see the attraction in it. What's in it for you?

(The Tudors clip)

What I want your grace, only you can give me.

MARK JOFFE, DIRECTOR: He's got a huge filmography. I think it's probably well into the hundreds.

(The Dish clip)

We are in the middle of the greatest feat ever attempted, this is science's chance to be daring.

(Hunt for the Wilderpeople clip)

I've got better things than to run around the bush looking for little shits like you.

I hate you!

Well I hate you too!

MARK JOFFE, DIRECTOR: He is getting older, but he is getting better with age.

MARK JOFFE, DIRECTOR: He is one of these few actors who can crossover from arthouse to commercial.

(Hunt for the Wilderpeople clip)

You can bugger off, we're dangerous!

Yeah! We're dangerous!

(The Twelve clip)

From here on the most important thing is how you appear to the jury.

MARK JOFFE, DIRECTOR: He loves that low key role where he's just in the background. But he is a leading man, but he doesn't have the, you know, the aggressive attributes of, you know, wanting to be upfront and taking attention away from other people.

(The Piano clip)

Perhaps with time, you might come to like me.

SAM NEILL: Some roles are better than others. Some roles. You know, you think, 'oh my God, this is a gift'.

(The Piano clip)

I trusted you.

I trusted you. I trusted you.

MARGARET FINK, PRODUCER: Sam was awarded the Longford Lyall Award for his contribution to Australian cinema.

(AACTA Awards clip)

George Miller: Everybody please welcome Sam to the stage!

SAM NEILL: I'd prefer if it was called the 'Longford Lyall halfway there' award because the lifetime part makes it sound like it's a little terminal. And I'm not done I'd still like to put a few runs on the board. If this is terminal, it's been great to know you. Good night.

(Omen III: The Final Conflict clip)

Of course I'd be pleased to talk to you, give Val my…

TIM NEILL-HARROW, SON:

My dad met my mom on the set of The Omen 3, the final conflict.

(Omen III: The Final Conflict clip)

Sundays I usually spend with Peter.

TIM NEILL-HARROW, SON: Lisa Harrow is an actor that also grew up in Auckland. For me it was completely normal having both my parents in movies.

MICHAEL NEILL, BROTHER: It was a relationship that came to its natural end. But, you know, they've remained on good terms, I think, which has been important for Tim growing up. Sam met Noriko, who was the make-up artist on the film he was doing at the time, and, you know, he fell madly in love with Noriko.

SAM NEILL: I was married for 20-plus years, but it wasn't to last. I have four kids, two boys, two girls. They're all grown ups now. I think you could probably characterise my family life as being somewhat haphazard. Probably a lot of my parenting has been marked by absence for one reason or another, not the least of them being that my job entails travel a lot. I don't have any tickets on myself as far as parenting is concerned. At the same time, I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

TIM NEILL-HARROW, SON: There are worse things a dad can do than be off working. He is a good dad. He's a very good dad. He's Grandad, Grad, as we call him.

SAM NEILL: Now I have eight grandchildren. This has to stop. I mean, this is …it's …I'm only just got a handle on all their names anymore and I'll be struggling. But they're adorable.

(Instagram video)

SAM NEILL: My news seems to be all over the news at the moment. And it's sort of cancer, cancer, cancer which is slightly tiresome cos as you see I'm alive and well. And ah, let's not worry about all that, cos I'm fine ok!

TIM NEILL-HARROW, Son: He doesn't like to talk about his illness at all. I mean, it took me until I read the news articles to find out exactly what sort of cancer he had.

SAM NEILL: It's not interesting to me. I'm not interested in cancer. I've got other things on my mind. And it's not cancer.

DR ORLY LAVEE, HAEMATOLOGIST: He shared with me sort of during that treatment that he had this idea of writing a book at the time as part of his treatment, he was on a lot of steroid medication, which gave him a lot of energy and stopped him from sleeping particularly well. And he burned the midnight oil by writing chapters and chapters of this book at an incredible pace. I thought I should probably reduce the steroids at some point.

SAM NEILL: I would go to bed thinking, 'What will I write about tomorrow? 'And I'd go, 'Oh, I remember that, that was a funny thing that happened'. And I'll write about that tomorrow. So going to bed thinking, I've got something to look forward to tomorrow because I know what I'm going to write.

(On stage at Sydney Writers' Festival)

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: So you talk about your identity. 'There are, if I'm honest, two selves in me. Inside, somewhere very deep there lives a small, shy boy who sounds quite different. And his name is not Sam. It is Nigel. And every time my siblings use that name, that little boy squirms'. Do you think, Nigel now, who was pretty insecure, not sure of himself, do you think that now he's Sir Nigel He feels better?

SAM NEILL: I knew you were going to brutalise me on this.

SAM NEILL: Look, as an old lefty, I'm very dubious about, about honorifics. But last year, when I got the cancer thing, all those scruples I had, all those years, they just flew out the window. I thought, I'll take it. I've got cancer. F**k it. I'm going to be Sir Sam.

DR ORLY LAVEE, HAEMATOLOGIST: Some people choose not to have further treatment if they've found the upfront treatment quite rigorous. But he was keen to, to push on and try something new.

We had to think of what the next step would be in order to try and salvage things. So for Sam's second line of treatment, I chose more novel agents, a drug which Sam responded brilliantly to very quickly.

SAM NEILL: To everybody's surprise, it started to work, and that was a year ago now. And I have been in remission ever since then, and I'm immensely grateful for that. It's not something I can finish. I will be on this for the rest of my life.

DR ORLY LAVEE, HAEMATOLOGIST: So, because he's still in a remission I think we can. And we can do a blood test, just a canulation, for each cycle.

SAM NEILL: Every two weeks I go in and get beaten up again, it's like going ten rounds with the boxer. But it's keeping me alive. And, and being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative.

TIM NEILL-HARROW, Son: It's really encouraging to see how good he's looking and he's now able to get up and go to work, you know, 90 per cent of the time. And that's, that's a huge deal for a man like him.

SAM NEILL: I'm doing my first sort of substantial work for a year. The idea of retirement fills me with horror actually, to not be able to do the things that you love would be heartbreaking. But I've also got to be realistic in that one doctor said to me, 'This stuff will stop working one day too'. So I'm prepared for that. I'm ready for it. And I think I've done some good things. I've done some good things. Not all of them been good. We all have regrets, but, I think I can live with myself and I can die by myself ok. Gee how'd I get to that.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Which of Brian's roles would you most like to have done yourself? Hahaha.

SAM NEILL: I do want to mention one film: The Good Wife.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Yep, that was the first one we did together.

SAM NEILL: And you're married to Rachel?

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Yeah.

SAM NEILL: And I cuckolded you in that. Do you remember?

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Yeah, you do. You get off with her? Yeah. Well, the character gets off with the character. Yeah.

SAM NEILL: And she never gets over him. hahahaha.

BRYAN BROWN, FRIEND: Thank you all for coming. Sam Neill. Bryan Brown.