Campion Remembers Neill: 'Radiating Peace' in Final Months
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- Sam Neill was cast as the repressed, violent Stewart in The Piano after meeting Jane Campion at a cafe on Vulcan Lane, Auckland during pre-production — a role she says only he could surprise audiences with
- Neill wrote "a brilliant, entertaining memoir" in response to his cancer diagnosis and asked Campion to check The Piano chapter, which she found revealed a lonely period he never showed on set
- Campion visited Neill at the start of the year at his winery alongside his partner Heather and their mutual friend Griz, celebrating that he was cancer-free and "could now imagine new chapters"
- Neill was later hospitalized at St Vincent's in Sydney, where Campion dropped in with coffee and food alongside Rachel Ward; the room carried an intensified sense of love and they joked rather than discuss illness
- On her final visit, Neill was sketching dreamy watercolors with a set Campion brought from the Macquarie art school shop and followed a Split Enz reunion concert on audio from his bed
Why it matters: The tribute reframes Neill's final chapter through a filmmaker-friend's lens: even confined to St Vincent's in Sydney, he filled his days sketching watercolors and following music from his bed. For audiences anchored on his Jurassic Park legacy, Campion's account surfaces the quieter creative and personal chapter — writing a memoir, nurturing friendships — that broader obituaries risk smoothing over.
