Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE (born 14 September 1947) is a New Zealand actor. He is able-bodied accepted for his starring role as archaeologian Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III.
He has aswell had a amount of high-profile roles including the advance in Reilly, Ace of Spies, the developed Damien in Omen III: The Final Conflict, Merlin in the miniseries Merlin, Captain Vasily Borodin in The Hunt for Red October, Colonel Geoffrey Brydon in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, and Alistair Stewart in The Piano. In 2007 he played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in Showtime's The Tudors, and in 2012 began a starring role on the FOX ball Alcatraz.
Neill was built-in in Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, the additional son of Dermot Neill, a Harrow- and Sandhurst-educated army administrator and third-generation New Zealander, and his English wife Priscilla (née Ingham). At the time of Neill's birth, his ancestor was stationed in Northern Ireland, confined with the Irish Guards. The Neills endemic Neill and Co., the better liquor retailers in New Zealand.
In 1954, Neill alternate with his ancestors to New Zealand, area he abounding the Anglican boys' boarding academy Christ's College in Christchurch. He again went on to abstraction English abstract at the University of Canterbury area he had his aboriginal acknowledgment to acting. While at university he lived at College House area he captivated the position of "Chief Castigator and Crime Crusher" (CCACC). He again confused to Wellington to abide his tertiary apprenticeship at Victoria University from which he accelerating with a Bachelor of Arts amount in English literature.
In 2004, on Australian allocution appearance Enough Rope, accuser Andrew Denton briefly afflicted on the affair of Neill's "very bad" stuttering. It afflicted a lot of of his adolescence and as a aftereffect he was "hoping that humans wouldn't allocution to [him]" so he would not accept to acknowledgment back. He has mostly outgrown it, about he claims it can still be detected to this day.
He aboriginal took to calling himself "Sam" at academy in New Zealand area there were added Nigels and the name Nigel was "a little effete for ... a New Zealand playground".
