Sam Neill, 1947–2026

Sam Neill in October 2019. (Photo by Robert Marquardt/Getty Images)SAM NEILL, WHO DIED AT AGE 78 this morning following a years-long battle with cancer, was an unlikely A-lister. Hailing from New Zealand and possessing the very British quality of appearing in just about anything that would keep him working, Neill had a sort of receding everyman quality that allowed him to play both the hunter and the hunted. It’s this very quality—the ability to veer from tracking to panicked flight—that helped him explode into superstardom on the back of the Jurassic Park franchise as Dr. Alan Grant, a role that required equal parts wonder and skepticism.For those of us who came of age in the 1990s—reared on roaring T. rexes at the multiplex and endless replays of the modern classics on cable—Neill was so