Beloved actor Sam Neill has passed away at the age of 78 due to complications from pneumonia, according to recently confirmed reports.
His manager, Philip Grenz, revealed to TMZ that the star of Jurassic Park had ultimately succumbed to the illness.
Neill’s health journey included a successful battle against lymphoma, treated with the innovative CAR-T therapy, a fact highlighted by Grenz in his statement to the media.
In a candid announcement made in 2023, Neill shared his diagnosis of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare and formidable form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He passed away on Monday in Sydney, as confirmed in a statement posted on his social media accounts.
Describing his passing as both “sudden and unexpected,” the family’s statement assured that Neill was “cancer-free” when he died. Although the precise cause of death was not immediately disclosed, those closest to him noted that he was “surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that had been the hallmark of his life.”
Actor Sam Neill died at the age of 78 from the disease pneumonia, his manager said. Pictured 2017 in Venice, Italy
Neill’s manager Philip Grenz confirmed the Jurassic Park actor’s cause of death to TMZ following his passing on Monday in Sydney. Pictured 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand
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 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.
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.
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.
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 co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.
Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s Plenty and – again for Schepisi – in A Cry in the Dark, a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback.
Neill played paleontologist Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park film franchise
Following announcement of Neill’s passing, tributes were paid by fellow actors and directors. Pictured 2019
He 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.
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 co-starred with Neill in 2019’s Palm Beach, described him in a post on Instagram as ‘an officer and a gentleman in the truest sense.’
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.’
