Sir Sam Neill had pneumonia before death in Sydney, co-star says

Sir Sam Neill had pneumonia before his death, a friend and co-star says.

Neill died yesterday at the age of 78 in hospital in Sydney, his family said in a statement last night.

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The beloved New Zealand actor announced he was cancer-free in April after receiving treatment for a rare form of blood cancer for several years.

Tributes have poured in from around the world from friends, colleagues and Hollywood heavyweights keen to celebrate his work as an actor, winemaker, and proud New Zealander.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople co-star and friend of Neill, Rima Te Wiata, told Ryan Bridge TODAY that he had recently been sick with pneumonia.

“It really sucks actually. 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’.”

Neill’s family said in a statement that his death was “sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer-free”.

Te Wiata, who played Bella in the celebrated Kiwi film opposite on-screen husband Hector played by Neill, said he was “very good energy to be around”.

“He was a very steady, peaceful, grounded man. He was more like a lovely gardener, someone who was doing the vege garden or something. There was sort of a gentlemanly demeanour that went along with it.”

She described Neill as a good communicator and a good listener which made him a good actor.

“He had really good instincts and a really good spirit. He had a lot of empathy and those qualities really helped him find the dramatic... he had compassion for his characters. Even if they were awful, he knew how to understand things from their perspective.”

She said his first big film Sleeping Dogs ended up being his “passport to a non-stop rollercoaster international career which he had no model to work with because he was the first big film star from New Zealand.”

Neill’s family said last night in a statement: “They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”

The actor lived in Central Otago and owned the Two Paddocks vineyards.

He was best known worldwide as the palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster Jurassic Park, which premiered in 1993.

In 2025, he received the prestigious New Zealand Screen Legend Award at the annual New Zealand Screen Awards, honouring his five-decade legacy in television and film.

He is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.

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