Two Paddocks and famous farm friends: Sam Neill’s parallel life away from Hollywood

The world will forever remember Sam Neill as the dinosaur-wrangling palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park or as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders.

But following the legendary New Zealand actor’s death at 78, those who knew him knew his heart belonged somewhere away from the flashy lights of Hollywood.

His true sanctuary was as a winemaker and farm owner of Two Paddocks in the Central Otago region of the South Island of New Zealand.

Even after his death, his manager reflected on the grounded life he built on his New Zealand property, confirming that “as Sam was an intensely private man who loathed a fuss, his family will honour him with a private family memorial at his farm in New Zealand at a still-undetermined later date.”

“My life in acting was always a counterbalance to my life on the farm,” Neill famously reflected in a 2020 interview with Thought Economics.

“One was the palliative to the other.”

Here’s what Neill’s authentic and wonderfully eccentric life was like when the cameras stopped rolling.

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Famous farm friends

If you were one of Neill’s almost 1 million Instagram followers you knew his farm animals were the real stars of the show.

In what became a long-standing farm tradition, Neill began naming his livestock after his famous Hollywood peers.

Among the famous residents were cows named Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern, pigs called Amy Adams and Bryan Brown, a ram dubbed Jeff Goldblum, a duck that went by Charlie Pickering and a rooster named Michael Fassbender.

Neill said that naming them stopped them from ever ending up on a dinner plate.

“One can’t really eat Helena Bonham Carter,” the Jurassic Park star once told The Times. 

“When you’ve got a cow that’s a national treasure you can’t turn her into sausages. My current bull is Graham Norton – he’s taken over from Jimmy [James] Nesbitt.”

Neill’s wine legacy: Two Paddocks

Neill had an intense dislike for the phrase “celebrity wine brand”. For him, his winery Two Paddocks was a serious, full-time passion.

He grew up around the wine trade, as his family owned a spirit importing business. His venture into winemaking started as a small personal project in 1993 but quickly grew into an award-winning operation.

In 1993 Neill and his filmmaker friend Rodger Donaldson planted 2 hectares of Pinot Noir in the Gibbston Valley. That single plot eventually exploded into Two Paddocks, a world-class, organic operation.

It spanned four distinct vineyards in Central Otago: The First Paddock, The Last Chance, Red Bank Farm and The Fusilier, named in honour of his father Major Dermot Neill’s miliary service.

Several Two Paddocks wines have achieved a 95-point rating and it’s likely Neill celebrated that more fiercely than any box-office milestone.

The simple, single life

Despite pocketing millions from Hollywood blockbuster, Neill had no interest in a sprawling mega mansion.

He lived in a converted tractor shed on the vineyard, which he described as his “man cave”. The corrugated iron structure has an open-plan living room and kitchen and a single bedroom.

The living room was noted as bright and airy with skylights, large windows, wooden floors and minimalist decor including two small modern sofas, a table and two red leather chairs. A large wood-burning stove provides heat for the cold winters in the Queenstown region.

Neill viewed being a celebrity and being an actor as two different jobs. He famously told The Guardian: “I can go to Starbucks, no one bugs me.” And it seemed he liked it that way.

Since his split from ABC political journalist Laura Tingle in 2021, Neill did not publicly date anyone.

Neill was deeply private when it came to his relationships but what was known came from Neill’s memoir, Have I Told You This?

He confirmed in the memoir: “I am a solitary single man now.”

In 2023, he reflected on his single life to The Sydney Morning Herald: “I wonder if that’s a personal failing or just bad luck. I am past my use-by date and would not marry again. These days I’m lucky if I go on the odd date. That suits me well, but it’s also a bit lonely.”