Actor Sam Neill died at the age of 78 from pneumonia, it has been confirmed.
Neill’s manager, Philip Grenz, told TMZ that the Jurassic Park star had succumbed to the illness.
Neill had previously battled lymphoma with success after undergoing CAR-T therapy, a new treatment, Neill’s manager told the outlet.
In 2023, Neill disclosed that he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.
His death was ‘sudden and unexpected,’ the statement said, adding that he ‘remained cancer-free’ at the time of his death. A cause of death wasn’t specified at the time.Â
‘Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,’ his family wrote.
Actor Sam Neill died at the age of 78 from pneumonia, his manager said; Pictured in 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand
Neill’s manager Philip Grenz confirmed the Jurassic Park actor’s cause of death to TMZ following his passing on Monday in Sydney; Pictured in 2017 in Venice
Grenz also told the outlet that Neill’s family is putting together a small memorial service at his farm in New Zealand, with a select number of friends and relatives set to attend.
There will not be a large public gathering or celebration of life in accordance with the wishes of the actor, who preferred to keep things low-key, his manager said.
Neill had worked on four consecutive projects in the past year, his manager told the outlet, noting that they are expected to be released in the next few months.
Following the announcement of Neill’s passing, tributes were paid by fellow actors and directors, including Steven Spielberg, who helmed the first Jurassic Park movie.
‘I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world,’ Spielberg said in a statement.
Actor Sharon Lawrence wrote on Instagram: ‘Condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry.’
Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, along with Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong.Â
His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy Sweet Revenge to chopping off Hunter’s finger in The Piano to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror Event Horizon.Â
Neill played paleontologist Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park film franchiseÂ
Following announcement of Neill’s passing, tributes were paid by fellow actors and directors. Pictured 2019Â
He portrayed both saintly and sinner: In Omen III: The Final Conflict, he played Damien the Antichrist, and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors.Â
The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film My Brilliant Career, which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm, a classy thriller set at sea and costarring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.
Neill twice costarred with Meryl Streep in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s films Plenty and A Cry in the Dark.
The latter film retold the sensationalized aftermath of a real-life killing of a baby by a dingo in the Australian Outback.
Neill earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries Merlin and another as narrator of 2017’s Wild New Zealand.Â
Neill also earned three Golden Globe nods for Merlin, One Against the Wind and Reilly: Ace of Spies.
Richard E. Grant, a longtime friend who costarred with Neill in 2019’s Palm Beach, described him in a post on Instagram as ‘an officer and a gentleman in the truest sense.’Â
Grant said Neill had ‘guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my life.’
Perhaps Neill achieved his highest level of fame in Jurassic Park, playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs.
His character was thoughtful and reasonable, a scientist who warned the mastermind of the theme park before the chaos: ‘Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution, have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?’
Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t return for The Lost World: Jurassic Park II in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and Jurassic World: Dominion in 2022.
‘It’s probably a little late to learn these things,’ he told the New York Daily News in 2001, ‘but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.’
