Sam Neill’s wholesome Instagram is a gift – and a reminder to us all

The outpouring of grief for Sam Neill has seen many of us return to his exceedingly wholesome social media content.

What’s your favourite Sam Neill movie of all time? Mine might be the one where he wears an oilskin and sings a stirring rendition of ‘Hallelujah’ to a group of disinterested cows. You might not have seen it because it is only one minute and 42 seconds long and it came out 76 weeks ago on his Instagram. Before that? Probably the one where he played a pair of passive aggressive bumblebees named Derek and Paul. Then the one where he talks to his sunflowers. Then probably Jurassic Park.

As the nation mourns the passing of the beloved New Zealand actor, many are returning to Neill’s most underrated onscreen appearances – those on his social media accounts. Between his big international roles in the recent likes of Thor, Jurassic Park: Dominion and The Twelve, Neill would always return home to his Central Otago farm to treat all his followers to his veritable menagerie of friendly farmyard animals, insect life, and lush lavender bushes.

“Do you want to be a bumblebee with me,” he asks the camera in one perfect reel, as gentle piano and birdsong swells in the background. There is no time to answer (yes, obviously). “Of course you do – let’s go bumble around the lavender.”

For the next 45 seconds, oh the places you’ll bumble. Guiding his phone languidly through the dense purple bush, the real bumblebees flit past and the flowers quiver in their close-up. Any regular hack content creator would have captioned such a clip: “POV: You are a bumblebee,” but never our Neill. “WANT TO BUMBLEBEE ? With me ? In the lavender ( harvesting soon for lavender oil . ) Ok . LET’S BEE BUMBLING BEES COME ON …”

Real Neill-heads know that this is a textbook example of the star’s distinct writing style, crackling with personality in the face of bland ironic internet-speak. Take this caption on a photo of a guilty rooster: “WALK OF SHAME . The Rooster , #MichaelFassbender, turned up this morning to apologise for partying out all night . ” On a platform primarily concerned with perfection, there’s truly nothing like a couple of gaping fullstops and errant celebrity hashtags to take the edge off.

I should also mention at this point that all of Sam Neill’s animals are named after celebrities, naturally, including his Kunekune pig Amy Adams. Forget Nightbitch, because Adams unleashed her most visceral role in a powerful Reel from 2024 entitled HOW TO EAT ICE CREAM. Caption: “Found a couple of well-past use-by-date tubs in my freezer, so did the right thing by young AMY ADAMS and her Mum Bryan, who knew just how to make the most of it. WAIT TO THE END”

The accompanying clip is nothing short of joyous, with Amy Adams hiffing her whole happy snout into Tip Top’s finest and slurping it up gleefully, while ‘You Are So Beautiful’ provides the perfect soundtrack. Neill can be heard goading her on in the background to look at the camera. When she finally does, the video freeze-frames on her blissed-out beaming face. “Going to be a tad messy if he’s lactose intolerant,” one commenter wrote.

“That pig couldn’t even spell ‘lactose intolerant’,” Neill replied.

While we all dive back into Neill’s joyous arguments with belligerent cockatoos and cuddles with ducks, his rich archive also serves as a timely reminder from one of the greatest New Zealanders of all time. We’re all trying to “touch grass” as the world burns, but Sam Neill actually walked the walk. He didn’t just touch grass, he buried his face in it and inhaled deeply. He named the grass after his favourite actors. He fed the grass expired Tip Top while playing ‘You Are So Beautiful’.

And while most of us wouldn’t dare ever reveal our failures online, Neill always happily shared his shortcomings to make us laugh. Whether it was not knowing how to drive a tractor, calling out snoozy worker bees, or sharing his unscientific lavender harvesting method, Neill kept it about as real as Fassbender waddling home after a night out. Because he knew that, through all the horrors that flood our eyeballs everyday, we all need to see a pig eat a tub of ice-cream every now and again.

“The world is somewhat dark right now,” he wrote as Amy Adams polished off her 2L hokey pokey, “but there is still beauty to be found.”

A version of this story first appeared on The Spinoff in January 2025.