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Jurassic Park Dominion - movies

Dante would have fun playing around with Twitter in one of his Hell circles, but, surprisingly, among the petty feuds and pettier political meltdowns, there might be some good on the social-media platform after all: And we have veteran actor Sam Neill to thank. Because over the past few years, the Jurassic Park star has been broadcasting some quality, wholesome content from his gorgeous New Zealand farm for us to fawn over, with his never-ending parade of cute animal pals always ready for their close-ups. (Most of whom, in another fun twist, are named after celebrities.) Whether you’re more of a pig-video or a sheep-selfie person, Neill’s Twitter is a good-pastoral-vibes-only type of place, so leave your city slicker attitude at the door, okay?

This week, Neill was nice enough to indulge Vulture with a chat about his life on the farm and how it feels that his animals are now bona fide social-media icons. Among the pigs, sheep, ducks, rams, and chickens, Neill has plenty of anecdotes, and only one them involves death-by-boning.

I want to know all about your farm! How long have you lived there and where exactly is it located? And do you get to live there most of the year?
I’d say I get to live there, in Central Otago, New Zealand, about half of the year. I always spend time in Sydney, but I’m at the farm as much as I can be. I’ve got four little vineyards and the farm is the heart of it. My chickens, sheep, goats — the whole menagerie is there. [Laughs.] A couple of them have become unwitting media stars. I used to do a blog on my wine label’s website about farm life and what was going on there. But I got kind of bored of that. Same with Facebook, too. It got really tiresome. I enjoy Twitter because it’s really instant. It’s one thing doing a blog post, but with Twitter and Instagram, you get immediate feedback from people. You know what people are enjoying. I’ve worked out that what I enjoy and what I find funny is what people enjoy, too.

I have to say, like many people on Twitter, there’s a lot to be angry about in the world at the moment. There’s a lot of be anxious about. I used to do a lot more angry posts. But there are enough angry voices as it is! What’s amusing me today? It’s mostly my duck. I really don’t know why people have reacted so strongly to the farm, but it’s definitely a nice thing to have happen.

It seems like an idyllic place, especially when I look at your photos from my tiny New York apartment.
I just love being there, puttering around. I do work there occasionally. It’s not just playing with ducks. But I do have my diversions there. I love to name as many of my animals as possible after my friends. It doesn’t always end well. Meryl Streep was killed by a ferret recently. I found her as a pile of feathers one day.

Oh, jeez. Have you had any other animal demises lately?
Hugo Weaving was another unfortunate end, but he died happy. He was a ram. He was doing what rams do — he fell off the back of a female sheep. We found him with his feet up in the air the next day. They’re very, very, busy boys, those rams. It’s a little-known fact that the most prodigious mammal on the planet is a ram. Rams can service, shall we say, up to 80 females in a day. There’s no other male animal on the planet that has that capability. He went the distance and died on the job.

You famously also name a lot of your animals after celebrities as “insurance policies,” so you won’t be enticed to eat them. But have you ever named an animal after an enemy and then … eaten it?
What a vicious idea, coming from someone from New York! [Laughs.]

How many animals are roaming around at any given time?
I’ll have to think about that. They all serve productive functions. As cute as they are, they’re not decorative. The sheep are used as lawnmowers. The pigs make manure. I believe at the last count I had 25 sheep, about a dozen chickens, a few goats, three pigs, and one duck. Although I got a few new duck friends arriving soon! I’m very keen on native birds, so I’ve planted a lot of native shrubs and trees to entice them to fly to the area and keep predators at bay. They’re all outdoor animals, I should also note. I don’t encourage them to come inside my house.

Do these animals generally get along with each other? Are there any unlikely friendships or feuds among them?
A friend of mine had an older horse that she brought to the farm a while ago. Down the road from the farm, a wild sheep turned up out of the blue about a year ago. It hadn’t been shorn in years! A friend asked if I could look after it, so I said yes. We put the sheep next to the horse, and they’ve become absolutely inseparable. They’re two old men. They’re never more than ten yards apart. They nuzzle each other all day. The horse doesn’t like other horses — through the years, he would fight with them all. But he took to the sheep immediately and they completely love each other. When it rains, the sheep goes under the horse and he stays dry that way.

There’s been some aggro behavior on the farm these past few weeks. I have two male pigs, Angelica and Taika Waititi, who have been fighting for the female pig, Imogen Poots. Taika has another girlfriend down the road, but his job is to, uh, have conjugal responsibilities with Imogen. But Angelica has had his way with Imogen illegally before and has made many other attempts to see her. He’s broken down several fences to see her and has been in contention with Taika, who’s twice his size. They’ve come to blows a lot. Angelica finally lost out and has a lot of scars on his face now.

I want to bring up some specific animals of yours. I’m fascinated how Charlie the duck thinks you’re his dad. How did he waddle his way into your life?
I bought three Muscovy ducks a few years ago, and Charlie Pickering was always the friendliest of them. One of my employees was driving too fast into the farm one day and flattened Charlie’s two friends. They died. Poor Charlie was left on his own after that. There’s something about that duck! He loves being in my company and I love hanging around with him, too. I have a small lake on the farm, and in the summer I like to swim laps, and he likes to swim laps with me. Or rather, I shouldn’t say “he.” I always thought Charlie was a male, and then she laid eggs one day. That was quite a surprise, but then some wild ducks came and destroyed the eggs. That was probably disappointing for Charlie.

We’re getting new friends for Charlie in the next few weeks, so we’ll see how that goes. If they don’t bond, Charlie is No. 1 for me, and they’ll be returned. I really like Muscovy ducks; they’re really sociable. I tried having Indian Runner ducks, but they would always run away. I had to sell them. What’s the point of having an animal if they don’t like you?

How often do you do yoga with The Pig?
I love hanging out with The Pig. He comes to life beside me, but he respects my space if I just want to kick back, relax, and read a book next to him. I took a few selfies of me recently reading Fire and Fury, and he was in the background looking shocked that I was reading it. [Laughs.] I’ll admit the yoga isn’t a daily occurrence.

Has Helena Bonham Carter the cow had any more calves?
Yes, she has! She’s recently been shamelessly flirting with Jimmy Nesbitt, my bull. She’s competing for his favors with another female cow. She’s been at it for days now. I avert my eyes.

How does a cow flirt?
Nuzzling and sniffing backsides. Helena is a piece of work in the love department, I’ll tell you. The real Helena writes me an email once in a while, and I fill her in with what’s going on with her cow. But I try to avoid telling the more graphic details.

Are any of your celeb friends overly invested in their animal counterparts?
Imogen Poots is very invested. She’s filming something two miles down the road from me right now, so she’s anxious to finally meet her pig.

If you could be reincarnated as one of your farm animals, what would you be and why?
All of the animals generally live long, happy, and fruitful lives. If attention is one thing to go by, I’d be one of my rams. They have, at any one time, 30 or 40 girlfriends who just adore them. To be well loved in life is as much as one can hope for, isn’t it?

 

Source: The Vulture

Interviews - personal

 
The series The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook, airing on Ovation, follows actor Sam Neill on a journey that takes him to islands and lands that Captain James Cook explored 250 years ago, meeting descendants he came across on his voyages and looking into the triumphs and disasters that Cook left in his wake. On this incredible adventure, the actor travelled to such locations as Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii and Alaska, experiencing the people and their cultures, along the way.

While at the Ovation portion of the TCA Press Tour, Collider got the opportunity to sit down and chat 1-on-1 with Sam Neill about how privileged he felt to have an experience like this, how daunting the project, just how immense the Pacific is, having a different appreciation for the world around him, the stand-out memories, why he has no desire to retire from acting, and what he has coming out next.

Collider: What was it like to get to have an experience like this?

SAM NEILL: It was a privilege. In the first episode, I went to Raiatea, which is the most sacred island in the Pacific. And then, we end up in Alaska, and you couldn’t ask for more contrast. We go to go to amazing places. It was not only a big experience, but it was a profound experience that was very moving for me, at times.

Does that make it hard to go back to regular life and acting, after you finish something like this?

NEILL: Well, I had a bit of a guilty conscience, at the end of the year, to do my day job again. I took four movies last year, to make up for it. It’s not a travel log, but it is a travel log. It’s not a history series, but it is about history. It’s not an art series, but it certainly is concerned with the arts. It’s not a political series, but it does touch on politics.

When this idea was brought to you, what was your initial reaction to doing this?

NEILL: It was daunting because you’re taking on something that’s potentially controversial. There are a lot of Cook enthusiasts, and there are a lot of Cook haters out there. I realized there was a lot for me to learn, and it was already apparent to me that the history that I was taught at school wasn’t actually right, so it was good to get some wholly different perspectives. But once we jumped into it, it was a an immersive process, sometimes literally.

At any point were you like, “Why did I sign up for this? Can I be done now?”

NEILL: Quite often, but I would do it again, in a heartbeat. And there are places that I would go back to tomorrow, if I could. The Aleutian Islands, for instance, is absolutely amazing, and American soil, by the way. We forget that the Pacific is so immense. You can fly forever, and you’re still not there. It’s that sense of scale, if you can try to get your head around what these great voyages were – Cook’s voyages and the Polynesians before him. Every voyage was dangerous, the most traumatic being when Cook’s crew struck the Great Barrier Reef. There was a whole cascade of good fortune that they had. A coral head put a hole in the front of the ship, which should have sunk like a stone, but, they were finally able to get off of the reef, after two tides. They were all in a state of mortal terror, out of the sight of land, and no one on board could swim, which is an extraordinary thought. They used a sail covered in animal shit, because they had animals on board, for glue, like a bandage over the hole in the bow of the boat. What they didn’t know was that, underneath the bandage, the very coral head that had put the hole in the ship was stuck in there, and the bandage was holding it in place. Cook had a lot of very good luck. They didn’t have GPS, so they didn’t know where they were. They were sailing into uncharted waters, as were the Polynesians before them. Looking for what? Nobody knew.

Do you feel like you have a different appreciation for the world, in general, after doing this series?

NEILL: We always have to remind ourselves of how fragile life on this planet is, and what responsibilities we have. I was talking to the British High Commissioner, and part of her remit is the Pitcairn Islands. There’s one uninhabited Pitcairn Island, which is the epicenter of floating plastic in the world. You could not be in a more remote place, if you tried, and yet, all of the plastic in civilization lands up there. It’s a really heartbreaking idea.

What were the most memorable times you had on this journey?

NEILL: 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. These people are completely content and happy. It’s a reminder that a new car is just a bloody new car. It’s not going to make you happy. These people don’t own anything. They live incredibly simple lives, and they do it deliberately. They aren’t wearing t-shirts from the Gap. The aren’t interested in air conditioning. They have all that they think they need.

When you felt like you needed to return to acting, did it change how you wanted to choose projects?

NEILL: I’m 71 now, but I still want to put a few more rounds on the board. 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. I care, but I don’t care. 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 did four films last year, that I really enjoyed all of, but I was really exhausted, at the end of the year. I thought I might have worked a bit too hard, so this year, I will work a bit less, but I’m sure there are lots of things around that look like they might be fun.

What can you say about the films you have coming out next?

NEILL: [Ride Like a Girl] is a feel-good family type of film. It’s about the first woman, who won the Melvin Cup as a jockey. Teresa Palmer plays that character, and I play her father. It’s a girl power story. And then, I did [Palm Beach], that Rachel Ward wrote and directed, with Bryan Brown, Greta Scacchi and Richard E. Grant. That’s about a reunion weekend.

The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook airs on Thursday nights on Ovation.

Source: Collider.com

Interviews - The Pacific