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Michele Hewitson Interview: Sam Neill

nzherald
The Prop with moustache: "Bryan Brown thinks my moustache looks gay. I said to Bryan: 'It's 2012. My moustache can be whatever it wants to be'."

Excerpt -- About a year and a half ago I emailed actor Sam Neill to ask whether, if he was ever in Auckland, I could perhaps interview him. We had a very pleasant email exchange that involved, of all things, a pig. He said he was seldom in Auckland but that I was welcome to go and see him, and to meet his pig, in Queenstown.

Now he is in Auckland filming a TV series, Harry, so we met in Devonport where he's staying at a friend's house. He'd suggested we meet in a nearby cafe but as soon as he arrived he said: "Would you like to come back to my house?" So we took a sticky sweet piece of slice each - "do you want a corner bit too?", and later, cheerfully, as we were eating it, "it'll kill you of course" - and coffee back to the house where he is baching. There were dishes in the sink and shirts drying on a clothes horse.

I mention all that because for one thing, he's supposed to be aloof and, for another, he's a big movie star, isn't he? An aloof person who was also a big movie star wouldn't reply to your email in the first place, let alone invite you to his house. The only slight disappointment was that the pig had remained in Queenstown, but he would almost make up for that.

In the meantime, I had to come up with some reason for wanting to talk to him. I'd never really had a reason other than that he's Sam Neill and I've always thought he was a terrific actor, was clever and was quite good-looking.

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The New Zealand Herald