Celebrities paid tribute to "Jurassic Park" and "Peaky Blinders" actor Sam Neill following his death at age 78. File Photo by Rune Hellestad/UPI | License Photo
July 13 (UPI) -- Celebrities are paying tribute to Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders actor Sam Neill following news of his death.
Neill, a Northern Ireland-born and New Zealand-raised performer whose other credits included Merlin, The Tudors, Crusoe and the Jurassic Park sequel Jurassic Park Dominion, died Monday at age 78 in Sydney.
Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg remembered Neill, who played paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park (1993), Jurassic Park III (2001) and Jurassic World Dominion (2022), as a "brilliant" actor.
"Sam was exceptionally collaborative," Spielberg said in a statement. "It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were smelly and messy because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children."
