Sam Neill
I don't think I ever felt an outsider when I had a stutter.
If you're making films in New Zealand, you can't avoid the landscape. It's certainly more handsome than I am.
I feel very privileged working with other actors. Actors tend to be the best company I know.
I've worked all my life to shed myself of any character.
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.
I think you need brains to do any Shakespeare with any authority. I could do Shakespeare, but not with any authority.
As much as possible, I try to encourage people to use stunt men because that is really their job.
I can tell you where I was when Kennedy was shot - which was in the common room at school. I heard about it on the old valve radio. At the time of Armstrong's landing, I was at university rehearsing a play.
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 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'm not big on Champagne, but I'd take along a bottle of Cristal to pop for when the boat comes to the rescue.
When I started in films, it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of acting.
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 hate to say it, but there seems to have been some sort of dumbing down as far as movies go.
'Dexter' I'm very fond of. I got addicted to that.
If you want to learn about America, watch 'The Wire.' It's a profound piece of entertainment.
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.
No intelligent man wears a moustache voluntarily - you can write that down.
Try and fit in in a New Zealand playground with an Armagh accent - it doesn't work.
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.
Every actor wants more offers, but I get enough and I do like to be busy.
I get very antsy and nervous if I don't know what the next job is.
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.
I was christened 'Nigel.' It set me back for years.
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 certainly don't want to die playing a round of golf. And I don't want to die like Elvis. That's all they remember about him - the most beautiful man on the planet.
I don't have a chateau in France. There's no private airplane or yacht.
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'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.
Do you know, I'm not as much of a moviegoer as I should be, and I do end up - because I'm travelling so much - I end up seeing movies on aeroplanes, which is the worst possible way to see a movie!
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.
I was - I was very - I wasn't outgoing at all as a child.
I think I'm pretty benign, really, mostly.
I like Taika Waititi a lot. I thought 'Boy' was a really wonderful film, had great resonance. Very sad but also very funny. I thought 'What We Do in the Shadows,' the vampire film, was fantastic.
It makes the day considerably more enjoyable when you're working with people you think are good, and it makes your job easier, too.
We always have to remind ourselves of how fragile life on this planet is and what responsibilities we have.
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 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.
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.
It was just as well I found acting because I had no aptitude for anything else.
It doesn't matter how popular an actor you are: nobody will remember you forever.
I think so much of your energy when you're growing up is about becoming independent of your parents. And the older you get, the more you realise you're actually so much part and parcel of the same kind of material.
Failure is never quite so frightening as regret.Collection: Regret
Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see.Collection: Eye
Wines are like women in that it's often the imperfections that fascinate.Collection: Wine
Big budgets don't necessarily give you big films.Collection: Giving
[Hunt for the Wilderpeople] people seem to be just finding it hilarious in Sundance. I would think that judging on the feedback I get; it's a very warming film. It's not sentimental, but people are sort of heart warmed by a message that's pretty rare.Collection: Heart
The core of the film [Hunt for the Wilderpeople] is that relationship. Whether they're getting on or whether they're not. If that relationship works, then everything else works as well. And you kind of almost, sort of, gives into a realm of something like New Zealand magic realism... There is no world in which social work is actually pursues some kid into the woods in this manner.Collection: Kids