Neill was born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, where his father served as an officer in the Royal Irish Fusiliers.

“I was born in Omagh, we lived in Armagh and my favorite place here was Tyrella beach. I think that’s where I grew up,” Neill told the BBC in 2012.

The family moved to New Zealand when Neill was seven years old.

His real name was Nigel, but he began calling himself Sam after discovering that his new school already had several boys named after him. He later joked that “being christened Nigel set me back for years.”

At first I wasn’t sure what kind of career to pursue. Neill decided not to follow his father into the military or join the hotel business his family owned.

A brief attempt at a career in the legal profession was cut short after he failed his first year of law school.

Having starred in student productions of Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Neill decided to embark on an acting career.

Several films and television series in New Zealand followed, with a prominent role in his home country in 1977 with an appearance in Sleeping Dogs, before Neill moved to Australia and began landing bigger roles.

He credited 1979’s My Brilliant Career as “a very important role for me, because it was the film that got me out of New Zealand and allowed me to live and work in Australia, which I love.”

“Yeah, that was probably more transformative than anything else I’ve ever done, in a way.”