‘ He made wine and shared it with them. What more do you want?’: Sam Neill is remembered by his teammates | Sam Neill

‘A beautiful person and an amazing actor’

Lindsay Duncan, partner, Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983) and Blackbird (2019)

I worked with Sam on Reilly when I was young and shy and even though I was pressed on a desk with him in one scene, I didn’t get much out of the experience. So a few years ago we did a movie called Blackbird, directed by Roger Michell, with an amazing group of actors and we all became close. Sam was a beautiful man. He was an amazing actor. He was warm and funny. He listened when you talked. He made wine and shared it with them. What more do you want in a guy?

When Sam was going through the most difficult phase of treatment, the
The Blackbird team decided they needed to have some fun. After a lot of thought from all of us and the exchange of many interesting pictures, Mia Wasikowska sent a cake from her friend who was a pig and a sheep involved in intimate events, with a bottle of Two Paddocks next to it. Just a few of his favorite things, in one cake. We both have little Blackbird tattoos, so this will go with him.

‘He was not tainted by the wishes of the cardinal’

Charles Dance, co-star, Plenty (1985), At the End of the World (2005) and Then There Were None (2015)

In an industry full of questionable people, Sam was one of the good guys. He was an amazing actor, carefree and very handsome who was also amazingly handsome. I always felt that he was careful. There must have been times when he was worried, insecure and suspicious, but it wasn’t obvious. He was a very nice person.

Sam was always more interested in the quality of his wine than any acting award. When we wrapped up filming with Then There Were None, he offered us all the best pinot noir from his winery, which he was very proud of. Between jobs, he missed returning to New Zealand. He was not tainted by the kind of passions that are prevalent in our industry – nor was he complacent. He just took life as it came.

When he was diagnosed with cancer, I believe he had only six months to live, I sent him an email saying: “Okay, Sam, come on, you can handle this.” He also wrote: “Great to hear from you mate!” With him, what you saw is what you got. I think this was one of the reasons why he encouraged love so much.

In this business, all of us – even if we may deny it – have public and private faces. Sam had the same face in both places. I wish I could spend more time with him, because the little time I spent with him was very enjoyable.

‘Interested in the puff adder’s cytotoxic venom’

Peter Webber, director, Tutankhamun (2016)

At first I wanted to cast Sam because it was so weird Andrzej Żuławski film Possessionas seen by Isabelle Adjani. That performance – strange and exaggerated but so haunting, haunting, devastating – stayed with me for years. Then I started working with him on television in South Africa, and I spent the rest of the time blaming him for other issues. He was funny and although he was a tough guy, he wasn’t big or a star. There is no ego on set. There is no argument. Just work. It’s a bad joke.

It got to about 50 degrees in Vioolsdrift, on the border with Namibia, but Sam relished the challenge and didn’t react to the stupidity and vanity that you sometimes find in athletes of his age and experience. He played an English aristocrat Lord Carnarvon: dug into the character’s humor, finding light and shade where it doesn’t always show up on the page.

It was a long bloom in difficult conditions – fighting sandstorms, scorpions, deadly spiders and adder puffs. Sam was fascinated by the snakes and the severity of their bites, which he explained with great pleasure. Puff adder is cytotoxic – it dissolves tissue. The flesh dies and leaves, sometimes down to the bone. You can develop necrotising fasciitis on top of everything – a flesh-eating disease – which requires multiple surgeries to cut away the dead tissue. Sam would explain all this for a long time, at dinner, with the kind of joy most people reserve for describing good wine, and then stop, drink it himself, and say something like, “Nevertheless, beautiful sunshine tonight.”

He was bon viveur, Sam. Proud of his New Zealand roots and the vineyard he had there, he talked about the way other actors talk about their art – with real love and no pretense.

He can also be dangerous. We moved the picture to Cape Town – very comfortable, but not quite the same after the desert madness. Sam punctuated the frenzy of cartoon pages and pages of daily conversations with more and more jokes. He convinced the poor little actor that the scene required a large mouthful of cake on top of it. Understandable enough. She believed him. Twenty years later – wide, medium, close – the poor woman was still forcing spoonful after spoonful into her mouth. Eyes watering. Cheeks like a hamster. All the workers were on it and took three. Sam never broke down. That was about him – he could keep a dead straight face while another two-footer slowly sank into the sponge cake. He only realized when he caught us all trying not to laugh. Even so, Sam didn’t seem to know what the problem was.

You kept your eyes on him. He always established something, quietly, patiently. But it wasn’t cruel. You were generous. He made everyone in attendance feel like they were in on the joke, even if it was a joke.

A good player. A better person. I will miss him.