Sam Neill: on his early directing career, and moving into acting...

Interview – 2009

Sam Neill moved from directing at the National Film Unit, to becoming one of New Zealand's most internationally successful actors. His extended resume of features includes lead roles in a number of local movies, from playing a man alone in breakout feature Sleeping Dogs to a very unusual reverend in Dean Spanley.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Neill talks about:

How his university friend John Laing indirectly led him to a job at the National Film Unit
The attitude of making "one film for them, and one for yourself" while directing at the NFU
The challenges of shooting classic ski movie Flare
How he would edit his NFU films differently in hindsight
His NFU documentary on innovative architect Ian Athfield
How one role leads to another: winning the lead role in Sleeping Dogs after playing a priest in Barry Barclay’s Ashes
His enthusiasm for the "very unusual" movie Dean Spanley
His thoughts on reincarnation
Working with screen legend Peter O’Toole and director Toa Fraser on Dean Spanley

Sam Neill went on to do this extended ScreenTalk interview in 2024.

This video was first uploaded on 6 March 2009, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

...it was Barry's film, and their spotting me in that, that lead to me doing films as an actor properly — so one thing kind of leads to another. It's been like a weird game of dominos, you know: one domino flips another one over, and there you find yourself doing something different.
– Sam Neill on how acting in Barry Barclay's Ashes led to his first big screen role, in Sleeping Dogs

Sam's Full Profile