Sam Neill, the veteran actor best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, has died at the age of 78.
Neill died Monday, July 13, in Sydney, Australia, according to a statement released by his family.
His death was described as “sudden and unexpected.” A cause of death has not been announced.
“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” said the statement.
The family added that Neill remained cancer-free at the time of his death. In 2023, the actor revealed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and he had since spoken openly about undergoing treatment and reaching remission.
Godzilla x Kong: Supernova Will Be Released Posthumously
Neill had completed a role in Legendary and Warner Bros.’ upcoming MonsterVerse movie, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, which is scheduled to open in theaters on March 26, 2027.
Legendary announced Neill’s casting in April 2025. Details surrounding his character have not been revealed.
Directed by Grant Sputore, the movie also stars Kaitlyn Dever, Jack O’Connell, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Delroy Lindo and Matthew Modine. Dan Stevens returns as Trapper following Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
The release will mark one of Neill’s final appearances on the big screen and bring the actor behind one of cinema’s most famous dinosaur experts into another franchise built around giant creatures.
A Career Spanning More Than Five Decades
For most moviegoers, Neill will forever be Dr. Alan Grant. He originated the role of the skeptical paleontologist in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), reprised it in Jurassic Park III (2001), and returned to the franchise nearly 30 years after the original in Jurassic World Dominion (2022), reuniting with co-stars Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum.
But Neill’s résumé stretched far beyond Isla Nublar.
The same year Jurassic Park premiered, he co-starred in Jane Campion’s Palme d’Or–winning The Piano.
He played Soviet submarine officer Captain Vasili Borodin in The Hunt for Red October (1990), and he became a fixture of genre and horror cinema in films that earned devoted cult followings, among them The Omen: The Final Conflict (1981), Possession (1981), John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness (1994), and Event Horizon (1997).
Television audiences later knew him as Chief Inspector Campbell across the first two seasons of Peaky Blinders.
