Top 35 Sam Neill Quotes

As much as possible, I try to encourage people to use stunt men because that is really their job.

I enjoy some physical stuff. But if I had a choice between playing a scene where it’s raining, it’s terribly cold, I’m wet and I’m being drowned and playing a scene with dinosaur eggs in a laboratory, I’d probably take the latter. It’s warmer and generally more comfortable!

I always want to be as good in the part as I possibly can. But I make no pretensions of being the greatest actor in the world.

I’m serviceable. I’m durable. I get the job done.

I think I’m pretty benign, really, mostly.

If you’re making a horror film, it’s very important that you have lots of quiet, suspensey, don’t-know-what’s-happening stuff before you get the big fright.

I don’t have a chateau in France. There’s no private airplane or yacht.

No intelligent man wears a moustache voluntarily – you can write that down.

I’m not big on Champagne, but I’d take along a bottle of Cristal to pop for when the boat comes to the rescue.

I’m not sure it’s affection for Australian or New Zealand films or not. I think it’s just that there’s something about ‘Wilderpeople’ that has really struck a chord.

If you want to learn about America, watch ‘The Wire.’ It’s a profound piece of entertainment.

I’m conscious that there’s only a limited amount that I’ll get done before I get shuffled into retirement, but I certainly have no desire to retire.

If you’re making films in New Zealand, you can’t avoid the landscape. It’s certainly more handsome than I am.

I met the most extraordinary people all over the Pacific, but especially the people in Vanuatu who, in a material sense, are the poorest people I’ve ever come across. They own nothing, but in a well-being sense, they are easily the wealthiest people that I’ve come across.

Whilst filming ‘Jurassic Park,’ I watched a hurricane approaching the beach in Hawaii. My co-worker Laura Dern and I thought we might die, but we managed to laugh about it later.

We always have to remind ourselves of how fragile life on this planet is and what responsibilities we have.

I go by the role pretty much. And I think the only genre I haven’t gotten to do but I’d love to is a western, but no one has ever asked me to do that. Unfortunately they are very few and far between these days, but that is one type of film I’d love to do.

I hate to say it, but there seems to have been some sort of dumbing down as far as movies go.

I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.

When I started in films, it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of acting.

When I left university I was working for a documentary film company for six or seven years to the great relief of my father whose greatest waking fear was that I would become an actor.

People turn into fools when they see a movie star and do weird things.

I can never really remember what I look like. I’m just sort of neutral. I don’t think I’m sort of, you know, hideous.

I understand acting and I understand actors. I don’t really understand the world of celebrity. That’s just bizarre. Those sorts of elements I’m at sea with.

It makes the day considerably more enjoyable when you’re working with people you think are good, and it makes your job easier, too.

I was christened ‘Nigel.’ It set me back for years.

‘Dexter’ I’m very fond of. I got addicted to that.

I have taken a bit, when I find the time, to the odd television binge. Because television has improved so much, it’s worth binging.

It was just as well I found acting because I had no aptitude for anything else.

I was – I was very – I wasn’t outgoing at all as a child.

It doesn’t matter how popular an actor you are: nobody will remember you forever.

It took me 30 years, but I finally bought myself the Patek Philippe watch I’d always wanted. It’s ridiculous how much I love it.

If it looks like fun, and it looks like quality, then I’ll do it. I don’t feel compelled to work – or not to work.

I’ve worked all my life to shed myself of any character.

Every actor wants more offers, but I get enough and I do like to be busy.