Steven Spielberg Praises ‘Jurassic Park’ Star Sam Neill as ‘Exceptionally Collaborative’ in Tribute to Late Actor: He ‘Will Never Be Forgotten’
Posted by mcfw31
Steven Spielberg Praises ‘Jurassic Park’ Star Sam Neill as ‘Exceptionally Collaborative’ in Tribute to Late Actor: He ‘Will Never Be Forgotten’
Posted by mcfw31
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> “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park,” Spielberg said in a statement to Variety. “Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him. Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
I always loved that Spielberg didn’t really have his “favourite” actors that he relied upon exclusively for different movies, Tom Hanks probably being the exception. Sam Neill is very good at capturing that kind of “skeptical wonder” which was perfect for Alan Grant.
I appreciated that he would cast the right actor for the right role, without ever necessarily having to work with them ever again, similar to Kubrick in that way.