Sam Neill had been battling pneumonia in the weeks before his sudden death, his Hunt for the Wilderpeople co-star Rima Te Wiata revealed on Tuesday. The New Zealand actor, best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, died on Monday in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 78.
The actress, who played Neill’s on-screen wife Bella in the 2016 film, said on Ryan Bridge TODAY that the New Zealand actor had recently been sick.
“It really sucks, actually,” she said. “As he said in the press once, he’s not scared of death, but he would be annoyed. He would be like, ‘Oh, for goodness sake, I just got over my cancer, and now look, now I get pneumonia. What next?’ But he’s on his big journey now.”
She did not specify how recently he had fallen ill or how the illness progressed.
His family confirmed the news in a statement, calling the loss “sudden and unexpected” but noting he had remained cancer-free. Te Wiata’s comments offer the first indication of what may have preceded his death, even as the official cause remains undisclosed.
Laura Tingle, the Australian journalist who dated the late actor from 2018 to 2021, shared her own tribute on Instagram, posting a slideshow of photos and videos alongside the caption “Sweet dreams, darling Sam.”
Speaking to ABC Radio Sydney about the veteran actor, she added, “His poor old body just sort of got a bit exhausted.”
“He’s been pretty sick for the last couple of weeks, and everybody who loved him has been willing him on from near and far, but I think it was just a bit too much to recover from one more time.”
Neill’s family had announced his death in a statement posted to his Instagram account, writing that he was “surrounded by family” and “passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life.”
The family also thanked the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney “for their incredible care” and asked for privacy while they process the loss, adding that further details would be shared at a later time.
Tributes poured in from collaborators across the Peaky Blinders actor’s five-decade career. Nicole Kidman, who starred opposite him in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm, said simply that “Sam was one of the greats.”
Cillian Murphy, his co-star on Peaky Blinders, wrote that he “admired him and adored him in equal measure,” calling Neill “one of the kindest, funniest and gentlest people, and one of the finest actors.”
Steven Spielberg, who directed Neill in the Jurassic Park franchise, said he was “saddened” by the news and credited several earlier directors, including Roger Donaldson and Phillip Noyce, with bringing Neill to his attention.
The director also recalled that playing Dr. Grant required the acclaimed actor to act as though he found children “messy and smelly,” which he called “the opposite of the loving father he was to his children.”
Neill’s personal life included two marriages and one long-term partnership. He shares a son, Tim, born in 1983, with New Zealand actress Lisa Harrow, whom he met on the set of Omen III: The Final Conflict in 1980.
He later married makeup artist Noriko Watanabe in 1989, with whom he had a daughter, Elena, before the couple separated in 2017. His relationship with Tingle followed his divorce from Watanabe.