Jurassic Park actor Sam Neill dies aged 78

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said Sir Sam "started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of".

"For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today – one of our greatest cultural exports," he wrote on X.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has also paid tribute, writing on X that he "starred in so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts".

Born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Omagh, Northern Ireland, in 1947, he moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, with his family as a child.

He adopted the name Sam at the age of 12 because there were several Nigels at his school.

He began acting while studying at the University of Canterbury and made his film debut in 1971's The City of No. After a number of television and film roles in New Zealand, he gained wider recognition in the 1977 film Sleeping Dogs, one of the country's first films to achieve international distribution.

He later moved to Australia, where he starred in My Brilliant Career (1979), a film that helped establish him as a leading actor.

Sir Sam achieved global fame in 1993 through his performances in Jane Campion's Oscar-winning The Piano and as palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. He reprised the role in Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), and voiced the character in three video games based on the series.