Sam Neill, the actor whose easy charisma and understated screen presence carried him from the art houses of New Zealand and Australia to the biggest blockbuster in movie history, has died at 78. His family announced the loss as sudden and unexpected, noting that he had remained free of the blood cancer he’d battled for several years.

Born Nigel John Dermot Neill in Omagh, County Tyrone, in September 1947, he moved with his family to New Zealand as a young child and was raised in Dunedin. He adopted the name “Sam” at school, reportedly to avoid standing out among a crowd of Nigels, and found his way to acting almost by accident while studying at the University of Canterbury.

Neill first drew international attention in Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film MY BRILLIANT CAREER, which also launched Judy Davis’s career, arriving amid a wave of Australian and New Zealand talent that reshaped world cinema. He went on to work with some of the era’s most acclaimed directors, starring twice opposite Meryl Streep for Fred Schepisi, in PLENTY and A CRY IN THE DARK, and appearing alongside a then-unknown Nicole Kidman in Phillip Noyce’s thriller DEAD CALM.

But it was a role as a paleontologist that made him a household name. His portrayal of Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 JURASSIC PARK brought him worldwide fame, a character he would return to across multiple sequels over three decades. That same year, he played opposite Holly Hunter in Jane Campion’s Oscar-winning THE PIANO.

His range extended across genre and medium: a haunted investigator in John Carpenter’s IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS, a Soviet submariner in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and later television work including PEAKY BLINDERS, THE TUDORS, and Apple TV+’s INVASION. His performance as the title wizard in NBC’s 1998 miniseries MERLIN earned him one of two Emmy nominations, alongside three Golden Globe nominations. He had, by his own reckoning, over 150 screen credits.

Off screen, Neill split his life between acting and winemaking. In 1983 he bought land in Central Otago and launched his Two Paddocks vineyard, calling it half his life and a source of deep reward. He was famously reluctant to embrace celebrity, preferring life on his New Zealand farm, where he was known for posting photos of animals given the names of friends and colleagues.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 and was knighted by New Zealand in 2022. Diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2023, he wrote his memoir during treatment and spoke candidly about facing mortality with characteristic wit rather than fear.

He is survived by his family, who described him as passing “with the dignity that has characterised his whole life.”