Actor Sam Neill, who has died aged 78, grew up playing in the NI countryside and despite everywhere his stellar career took him, never forgot his roots14:05, 13 Jul 2026Updated 14:05, 13 Jul 2026Time and again, Irish actors are mistakenly claimed as British (Barry Keoghan, Saoirse Ronan, Cilian Murphy, anyone?), particularly when they’re up for or have just won a major accolade - and it kind of irks me.‌Now, as a proud Belfast girl, I’m going to unashamedly do exactly the same thing and claim Sam Neill, who has sadly died at the age of 78, as one of our own.‌The brilliantly understated star of Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders, who appeared in over 100 films, died ‘unexpectedly’ in Sydney surrounded by family, though poignantly, he had been living cancer-free since April following a three-year battle with the disease.‌And though his family moved to New Zealand when he was just seven - where he would go on to receive a knighthood in 2022, the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon paying tribute to him today as ‘one of the greats’ - he spent his formative childhood years in Northern Ireland.Born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, to army parents - Neill’s mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham) was English and his father from New Zealand, but stationed in NI as a British Army officer with the Irish Guards at the time of his birth.‌The late star once explained that his identity was forever torn between New Zealand, Australia and Northern Ireland, and ever humble said, “It’s always very nice if people from those places take an interest in me.”In a 2014 interview, his love for the country he roamed about freely as a child was still strong in his mind, as he described his pre-Troubles childhood in County Armagh as ‘idyllic’.“It was my idea of the Garden of Eden. I would range freely around the beautiful countryside, and I vividly remember, too, going with my brother to Tyrella beach – one of the greatest in the British Isles – and fishing for hours on the rocks; no one was there; it was ours.”‌He previously revealed that he had returned to the town of his roots several times over the years, and admitted that his parents remained nostalgic about their sojourn in the province.“For my family this was where some of our happiest times were. After my parents left to go back to New Zealand, they were always a little bit wistful about Northern Ireland.”‌It was also poignant that, being away for so long, he had lost all trace of his Northern Irish accent (he once joked he had the accent ‘beaten out of him’ at school), and asked James Nesbitt and Liam Neeson for help on his Northern Irish brogue to play Major Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders.Though his accent as the Ulster-born policeman was spot on in the end, he quipped at the time that he worried he sounded like “the equivalent of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins, doing a terrible Cockney accent. Hopefully it’s not too embarrassing with the natives.”It was anything but. The ‘natives’ loved him, and will be as devastated as I today that we have lost such a great actor.‌Sadly, I never got the chance to interview Neill, but I would have relished the opportunity, not only to talk movies but hear more stories about his deep connections to Northern Ireland.I will make do, instead, with reminding myself of some of his great onscreen moments - beyond the blockbusters and smash-hit TV shows.‌He gave glorious turns in films like The Piano, The Hunt For Red October, thriller Dead Calm - even 2000 vampire flick Daybreakers with Ethan Hawke - a hidden gem that every fan should revisit.But most of all, everything I’ve ever read about Neill, or seen in interviews, wherever we want to place him on the map - reveals what a total gentleman he was. With, perhaps, a slightly wicked sense of humour and a knack for telling a great story that only a Northern Ireland could have instilled -but we can argue about that later….Speaking in 2016 about his role in acclaimed low-budget Kiwi flick, Hunt For The Wilderpeople, he joked, "People are nicer to me in New Zealand as a result of this, because the last time they saw me was as a Northern Irish psychopath in Peaky Blinders and they avoided me."Article continues belowLike this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .