...will be taken to this "[link|http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Neill,+Sam|Mini biography"]:

Born in Northern Ireland to army parents, his family returned to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. [...] worked with the New Zealand Players and other theater groups. He also was a film director, editor and scriptwriter for the New Zealand National Film Unit for 6 years. His first feature film was Sleeping Dogs (1977). He then moved to Australia and [...]

So he moved -- or rather, "was moved" -- "home" to New Zealand in '54, at ~seven years of age, and moved from there to Australia some time in the '77 - '79 timeframe, when he would have been around thirty. (Shortly after that, he moved to Britain, and then "moved back to Australia in the late 1980s").

I'd say that makes him pretty definitely a New Zealander, since that is where he spent his formative years; and secondarily, if anything, apparently an Aussie. (Then again, perhaps Aussies and Kiwis alike are all "secondarily" Brits anyway?)

Commenting on Neill as an actor, let me add: IMDB quotes his 'Biography from Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia' - "If Neill is still not quite "star material," there is no question of his status among the best, and most versatile, actors working today." Huh?!? And this doesn't tell them that there's something wrong with how they determine what is 'star material'? Aren't these 'stars' supposed to be 'star' *actors* in the frigging first place?!? 'Far as I'm concerned, Sam Neill *is* a bloody 'star' -- much more so, than most vacuous pretty-face Hollyweird creatures!

One of his earliest performances that I saw: [link|http://us.imdb.com/Title?0084157|Ivanhoe (1982)], a "breakthrough" for me personally in that it may have been the first fiml I saw -- at least, it's the first I definitely remember -- where "the villain" (Neill plays the ambivalent but mostly 'evil' Templar knight Brian de Bois-Guilbert) steals the show. (Together with James Mason, who -- perhaps not-so-coincidentally? -- was, according to IMDB, instrumental in bringing Neill to Britain and thus probably furthered his career a good deal.)

...but that other thing, where he was in Russia, was great." -- but, judging from the Russian-sounding character names of everybody in [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0085077|"Reilly"] was that thing where he was in Russia! Yup, that must be the one I'm remembering -- I remember that it was set some time around the turn of the century, and the one on IMDB has Felix Dzerzhinsky in it, I see...

Unfortunately, it's so long ago since I saw that series (198X, where X<=7?), I can't remember what all it was about -- except a vague recollection that yes, it was great, and yes, Sam Neill was darn good in it.

Also, I've been deformed by having seen that otherwise crappy version of Ivanhoe far too many times -- Swedish state television corrupted their tradition of showing Ivanhoe on New Year's Day afternoon every bloody year, by switching to this version when it came out. Because it was in garish technicolour, I guess, and black-and-white felt so old in the early eighties... As if that could ever beat the [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0044760|1952 version] in the long run! That version had not only Liz Taylor as the Jewess-accused-of-witchcraft, Rebecca (can't remember what Joan Fontaine looked like as lady Rowena, but she can't have been as insipid-looking[*] as that porcelain-doll-looking wuss with her anime-figure-eyes in the 1982 version), but it had "I choose the axe" vs "I choose the mace and dagger"[**] for the big final fight (Rebecca's trial-by-arms) between Ivanhoe and de Bois-Guilbert! WTF is colour against *that*, I ask you???

---

[*]: Which Scott EXPLICITLY SAYS in the novel, she was not -- "lacking any insipidity", IIRC -- but that was really the SINGLE MOST DISTINGUISHING charcteristic of Lysette Anthony, anno 1982 ([link|http://us.imdb.com/Name?Anthony,+Lysette|IMDB], [link|http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Anthony,+Lysette|bio], [link|http://us.imdb.com/EGallery?source=granitz&group=0416-caa&photo=anthonyl.yse&path=pgallery&path_key=Anthony,+Lysette|photo]). Likewise for [link|http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Andrews,+Anthony|Anthony Andrews] in the title role; this "Blond British heartthrob" (Maltin) was really much better cast as the relatively poncy [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0084637|"Scarlet Pimpernel"] or, even more so, the all-out raving poofter Sebastian Flyte in [link|http://us.imdb.com/Details?0083390|"Brideshead Revisited"]. Feh -- no axe for him, oh no sirree!

[**]: And lovely sheet-metal shields that went "Bloinggg" and got all crumpled up as they pounded away on them with their axe and mace! Who cares about historically-correct wooden backing for non-crumpling shields, when all they whack them with are puny swords? Gimme an axe against a mace any day!

..."homo saps", indeed! :-)


(Heck, don't they have any "Bubba the Biker" types in Albion, or what?)