It was 1993, and Sam Neill wasn’t yet internationally famous – which is exactly what Steven Spielberg was looking for. He was about to direct Jurassic Park, and needed a relative unknown for the lead as he’d already blown most of his budget on dinosaur effects.
To film buffs, Neill – who has died, aged 78 – was far from unknown; he’d been acting solidly for 15 years, ever since his breakout role in New Zealand action thriller Sleeping Dogs (1977), with roles including the adult Damien in the third Omen film The Final Conflict and as Isabelle Adjani’s cuckolded husband in Possession (both 1981).
