Sam Neill, star of Jurassic Park and The Piano, dies at 78

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Sam Neill, the New Zealand-born screen star celebrated for roles that stretched from intimate dramas to Hollywood hits — including dinosaur palaeontologist Alan Grant in “Jurassic Park” and Holly Hunter’s husband in Jane Campion’s “The Piano” — has died. He was 78.

Neill revealed in 2023 that doctors had found angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, an uncommon form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A notice on his social media accounts said he died on Monday in Sydney. Relatives described the loss as “sudden and unexpected” and noted that he “remained cancer-free” at the time. No cause of death was given. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” the family wrote.

Peers offered public farewells. On Instagram, Sharon Lawrence posted: “Condolences and appreciation for the immense joy and mastery Sam Neill brought our industry.” Sebastian Roché, Neill’s co-star on “Merlin,” said: “Not only was he a brilliant actor, but he was such a wonderful person as well.”

Neill belonged to a wave of Australian and New Zealand talent who broke through after the late-1970s surge in Antipodean cinema, alongside figures such as Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His credits underlined that breadth: sharing the screen with Helena Bonham Carter in Alan Ayckbourn’s comedy “Sweet Revenge,” the stark violence of severing Hunter’s finger in “The Piano,” and the self-inflicted blindness of the science-fiction horror “Event Horizon.”