On Monday, news broke that beloved Kiwi actor Sir Sam Neill had died at the age of 78, after his family issued a statement online.
In 2016, he spoke to Real Life with John Cowan on Newstalk ZB after the release of the iconic Kiwi film, Hunt for the Wilderpeople.
Neill spoke to Cowan about overcoming a childhood stutter, his love for Otago, what inspired his move into winemaking, and a key mentor who helped build his acting career.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Life Your Slice of Life with John Cowen on
News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good and welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowan. This
week a new movie opened. It's called Hunt for the
Worlder People. It's a great New Zealand movie. It opened
in ninety cinemas all over the country. I was very
fortunate to see a preview of the film and I'm
even more fortunate to be sitting here. If it stars
Sam Neil. Welcome Sam. It's a very entertaining movie. The
(00:55):
Berry Crump storyline. It's a farce, but it's it's quite
touching in parts two, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I don't think it's a comedy as such, but I
think there's some very funny stuff in it.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
To me, it's my of you know, New Zealand drama
that is also funny.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I think there's some sad bits and some very touching
bits too.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's interesting that the casting is nearly all comedians, people
that we know for their comedy roles, and they play
it as such. And in the middle you play this
curmudgeonly straight guy. You get some funny lines, but well, yeah,
you do contrast with the others quite a lot. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
What's I've always grumbled about this that there's something about comedians.
Comedians can be and mostly are very good actors. Most
actors are not very good comedians. It doesn't work the
other way around at all.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Are you dismissing your own a comedic talent, because definitely,
because The Dish, which is one of my favorite movies,
is very funny. But I guess again, you're playing a
straight guy.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, someone, Well, someone's got to hold the tent.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And keep it real.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And I think that's that's my job here as much
as center thing is that is heck kind of grounds
things right. Otherwise everyone would be just all over the shop.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Without being too much of a spoiler for people that
haven't seen it, and I imagine a lot of people
are going to see it. It's about a troubled boy
that goes to live out in the in the back
blocks with a family, and then you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
One of the foster cares, takes off with the boy
unwillingly into the bush and you get hunted by the police.
Mayhem ensues, and it's got a lot of elements of
a good yarn, including even car chases and things thrown
in I think just for fun, really are they?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Isaac with Tiger was very keen to pay tribute, I
think to those classic New Zealand films from the seventies
and eighties, films like Sleeping Dogs, Hello, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, goodbye, good Hello, before we said goodbye to Smash Palace.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You know those, Yes, And it's kind of traditional New
Zealand films that the police end up chasing you and
wanted to kill you. Yes, so it does have elements
of that.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, yes, Uh, speaking of Sleeping Dogs, that was your
first feature movie, wasn't it? And I teased Ian Mune
when I interviewed him a while back about how because
he was I think producing directing it. I think that
was in it and was in it. And he wrote
himself for the role where he steals your wife after
you and I'm thinking I stealing same Neil's lady, and
(03:52):
he laughed and admitted the unlikelihood of that.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Nothing unlikely about that, but I was interested. I bought
Mune's autobiography, which I enjoyed reading a lot but I
was very interested. It's interesting when you come across yourself
and someone else's book. And he talks about how in
the first week before we were looking at dailies. In
(04:16):
those days, it took about a week before you could,
you know, get have a look at.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
What you've done.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
He was grumbling to Roger Donaldson, who directed it, that
I didn't seem to be doing anything. I wasn't doing
any acting until he saw me on film, and then
he realized, actually I was acting. It just wasn't big
like him. You know, it's a big actor. I guess
that's a stage heritage.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Whereas I think you perhaps the camera is right up there,
the flick of an eye, the lift of an eyebrow,
it's all captured and amplified on screen.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
That's that's right, that's the point he was making. And
I didn't. I wasn't aware of this at all. But
a couple of years ago I did a charity thing
on stage here in in Auckland, was a fundraiser of
christ Church and Mune was in it. I was in it.
We were all doing tour Fraser it was one of
(05:17):
his players, and we were all doing monologues basically there's
about thirty actors in it, and I did a pretty
big performance on that and when I came off stage,
there was Mune waiting in the wings and as I
passed him, he said, old Ham, that must have been
a big performance if Ian Mune calls me a ham.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Now, I think that a lot of people are going
to go and watch this movie because they're very fond
of and loyal to yourself and a lot of the
other Keiwi actors that are in this film, and there's
a whole range of them. It's very much a Kiwi
movie written by Barry Crump and all the principles in
it are Kiwis. Do you think New Zealand movies do
(06:00):
have a particular character? Is a hallmarked in New Zealand films?
Is there something that makes them fun to be part of?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You could think you could make a more New Zealand
film than this. Apart from the fact that it's it
kind of references old New Zealand films. It's referencing all
sorts of things like the flake commercials from the from
the eighties, and you know they are all sorts of
little easter eggs that you can pick up along the way.
Having said that, we took it to Sundance where it
(06:30):
was enormously successful, to the Sundance Film Festival, and it
was very gratifying to see an international audience laughing at
kind of the same stuff that we like.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
And the fact that it's been produced by Tyker whiteit
director directed by him. That was a big part in
you accepting the wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Absolutely a new all Tiger's work, and it's always cool
and always funny. And you know, I didn't really need
to read the script. I did, but I would have
done just trusted him enough. Yeah, absolutely trusted and would
trust them to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
The I heard him say that he quite enjoyed the
idea of getting a person that normally plays quite s
wive and smooth roles into a bush shirt and a
band haircut and out in the right. Actually, you've played
that role before in that Australian movie The Hunter. You
were charging around in the Tasmanian bush over there.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I was pretty willy on that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You're pretty willy in that as well. Perhaps I hope
you're not getting typecast as that grumpy old man with beards.
Your next film in Texas is are you going to
be bearded in that I am going to keep the
bed for that. I'm playing the patriarch. It's it's rather,
it's a serious thing. From a rather well known novel
called The Sun so O n And I played the
(07:51):
patriarch of a big, big old Texan family. I'll be bearded,
and I'll be carrying a gun and you know, riding
around in a stock saddle. You get to switch back
to an American accent.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I'll be doing a Texan accent.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
A Texan accent, you do a convincing one. I hope.
So it's work in progress at the moment. I hope
you don't become like Peter Sellers, who didn't really know
what his real voice was. Yes, it's interesting how people
can do voices and get almost lost in that. Now
we're hopping around a little bit here. You aim to
(08:28):
make the best Peno gree in the world. Pinodir bigger partn.
Can New Zealand actually really hope to make world class movies?
I mean New Zealand movies. We're very proud of them,
but they don't do as well in the box office
as say the Hollywood ones. Can we really expect to
turn out world beating cinema here as well.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, we're already have I mean, think of the Lord
of the Rings, of course, which you know, as massive
as they get. Yes, so yes, I mean, of course
a film like ours, is this current one for the
world of people as much by comparison, I mean the
massive budget films, there's a Lord of the Rings and
(09:13):
the Hobbits. But my guess is that this will more
than make its money back. It'll make a lot of
money for the budget because it's very good.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He is hoping that's a good guess. This is real
life on Newstalk zb and my guest tonight is Sam Neil.
We're talking about Hunt for the Wilder People that opened
all over New Zealand this week. Intelligent interviews with interesting people.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's real life on news talk zed Bee.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You welcome back to real life. I'm John Cown talking
with Sam Neil, who stars in Hunt for the Wilder People,
which opened all over New Zealand this week. I hope
that you get a chance to see it. I saw
it thoroughly enjoyed it. Do you enjoy the opportunity to
work back in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's always good to come home because I travel a lot.
Not that I don't enjoy that, and I've worked in
didn't countless countries now, but working with your own people,
on your own stories, that's important, you know. I mean,
I think it's very important. It's easy to underrate how
(10:35):
important the arts are in the life of a country.
I was very disappointed, for instance, in the last News
Honors that, apart from the nighting of Jane Campion, the
arts were almost entirely ignored, whereas business. There were gongs
all over the place for people in business. Now that
(10:56):
there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it's incredibly
important that we have a voice in the arts, that
we have that our painters are valued, our poets, our writers,
our filmmakers, our potters. These are the people that articulate
what we are. That these are the people that help
(11:19):
us understand what we are, that give up nation to voice.
And I think there's the arts at the moment are
somewhat underappreciated by those that run things.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
When you were growing up, did you imagine that you
yourself would be in the arts or did you have
your eye fixed on something like your family's business.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I imagine that's what I would probably end up doing.
That i'd be in business, you know, under my father,
or that I would be a soldier like my father
who had been in the army for twenty years. Luckily
it wasn't to be, because I think I would have
been hopeless in both roles, and I sort of ended up.
(12:04):
I muddled into acting, and I'm very fortunate for that.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Now. Acting was probably more for fun for the first
couple of decades of your life.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yeah, Well, I started acting at school, as most people do,
mostly because I was hopeless at sports and it would
seem to be one thing that I enjoyed. And then
I went to university and I did a bit of
acting there. When I left university, it was apparent to
(12:37):
me that there was no living to be made as
an actor in New Zealand. It was very very rare
that you could actually make even half a decent living
from acting in those days, and there were no drama schools,
nothing like that. So I got a job at the
National Film Unit and I worked there as a sort
of as an editor and a director, and I wrote
stuff and I was there for about eight years, and
(13:01):
then acting sort of took over again. Roger Donaldson put
me in Sleeping Dogs and that led to working in
Australia and I went on from there.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
When you were a younger person, I've heard you say
that you were a stammer or a stutter of is
I can't pick up any indication that there's still a problem, and.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Well, other other stammers can pick it up, or former statters. Yeah,
I started really badly. It just kind of began to
evaporate when I was about fifteen or fourteen or fifteen
sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Did the acting help I think it probably did.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Actually, what I learned was and I am now I'm
a patron of the Stammers Society in Australia. I got
interested in it, in the whole subject again because my
youngest child started to stammer very badly when she was
about two, when she was beginning to speak, and it
(13:59):
got to the point where she could barely get a
word out. So we took her to a speech therapist.
We were advised to do so. I'd never heard of
a speech therapist and the first question we were asked
by the therapist was did either of you the parents
stutter as a child. And I put my hand up
and said yes, I'd studied very badly and she said, well,
(14:22):
that is the reason your child starters. It's often an
inherited condition. I'd always been told that I had hooping
cough when I was three years old, and that was
the trauma, and I'd started from then on. In fact,
this probably has probably been running through my family for generations.
(14:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So the drama probably aided your confidence too, because stemma
has often become very shy.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I was very shy. I could barely in company that
I didn't know. I could barely get a word out
when I was small.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Isn't amazing that when you conquer something like that, and
you've also probably developed the skills of coping with being
an introvert in an extroverted thing, and that suits you
for acting. I suppose. Do you think there's a link
there that an introvert learning to overcome their shyness can
learn how to act in social situations, so they act
on they can act on screen.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I think it took me longer to get over the shyness. Yes,
that's all gone.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now you reckon? Yeah. Some people say that stutters look
at words rolling up to them, like coming along on
a conveyor belt, and they see the words coming and
think I'm going to have trouble with that one, or
step around that one, or do do you do anything
like that? Still? Not really.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I find sometimes if there's a word in a line
that I have to do that, I'll find a way
around it. That's more often an accent thing. You might
have trouble with certain words in a different accent. But
I do remember sitting at dinner for instance, or you know,
(16:02):
we'd go out to people's space for lunch or something
and sitting at the table and just in a flo sweat,
hoping that no one had actually asked me a question,
because real question means you have to answer, and and
I would just immediately blush and and I'd be paralyzed,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So one of the people that I know you did
have dinner with was James Mason. He was quite influential
in your life.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, that was quite a bit later James James and
his wife Clarissa, she was Australian. They saw me in
a film called My Brinding Career and they took an
interest in me, just out of the blue, and they
got me to Europe. They sent me a ticket to Europe.
I stayed with them a couple of times in Switzerland
and we became very good friend. So James was a
(16:50):
mentor to me, very nice man, very abane and delightful company.
So he had a professional encouragement for you. He was
able to coach you and open doors. Not so much coach,
but but yeah, I opened some doors. I me an
agent in England and I don't know, there's just something
(17:13):
about my work that he and she responded to. I
don't quite know what it was. But when they would
come to London we'd have dinner and we finally did
a film together.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We did.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
A version of Ivanhoe, which was made for the BBC,
I think. And oddly enough I spoke about this on
to the listener the other day. I discovered two or
three years ago that this film is shown every Boxing
day in Sweden and it has been since nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Every Boxing day. Yeah. It's like the sound of music.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, and it stood Swedish tradition. All families sit down,
they watch it together, and you know, most Swedes have
watched it every year. And I'm the villain in it,
so you know, for of course that's a dastardly villain.
Brian Bird give beer or something like that. And so
(18:19):
for ten, you know, for two glorious hours. At the
end of every year, I'm the most hated man in Sweden.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Isn't that a wonderful thing. That's a great that's a
great privilege. I believe that at lass of wine that
you had with James Bason changed your life in other
ways too. Well, Yes, that's true.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I it was actually one night he said, let's
got to dinner tonight. I'm going to take it to
Charlie Chaplin's favorite restaurant. I said, that's fantastic, and we went.
It was the Auberge to something or other on Lake Geneva,
and we sat at Charlie Chapman's favorite table and his
(19:01):
his name was carved on the wall. He'd carved his
own name on this you know, agent can do that.
And James said, I think you should carve your name
under under Chelly Chaffins. I said, I can't. I can't
possibly do that. But that night he ordered a fantastic
bottle of wine. I'd never drunk anything like it. And
(19:23):
I said, what is this wine, James? And he said, Burgundy.
Don't forget it. And I haven't forgotten it. A cup
to fifteen years later, I had a piece of land
in central Targo where people like Ralph Mills, whose great
family friend was growing really good pin and noir that's
(19:43):
to say Burgundy, just up the road, and I thought
I'd like to do that too, because I'd become very
fascinated by pin and noir as a result of that
bottle of wine. So now I have four little vineyards.
We're called two paddocks or it's four vineyards, and that's
(20:05):
I think probably if I leave any legacy behind at all,
it will be my wife.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You get involved hands on in the production of it. Yep.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We start picking on Monday, so.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You're going to be down there involved in that. And
is that the place that you most of all think
of as home. Yeah, it is. It's something about getting
back to the central Otago big sky.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, so I think it's I mean, we've been in
My family's been in a Targo one hundred and fifty years,
so I feel like we're sort of rooted there. You know.
We used to go to Central Targo when we were kids.
So I'm very much associated with the best owns of
my life and I've just been down there. I've just
been fishing. I've got a six and a half pound
(20:53):
rainbow congratulations week, which is now back in the river.
I was catching lesse So I've got another couple of
weeks back home and then it's off to Texas for
five months.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That must be hard sometimes. Do you ever get that
a deep ache just to get back? And do you
get homesick? I do get a bit homesick. But on
the other hand, I always have that New Zealand saying
that no one's more thrilled that in New Zealand are
getting on a plane. We love traveling, and I think
that's to deal with being in probably the most isolated
(21:29):
country in the world. Yes, I think we all enjoy
seeing a bit of the world, but doesn't it make
us appreciate it when we get back. As an international person,
you'd spend so much time away, it must give you
a perspective on New Zealand. And I know that you
have spoken out politically in elections in the past. There
must be things that you see about New Zealand that
(21:50):
you appreciate amazingly, but things that you also probably would
like to see change. What would be one of the
top things that you'd like New Zealand to embrace more
fully or change or drop. Is there anything that you'd
like to see New Zealand become more like?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Well, it's something that we've been through the flag debate
and now we're told no one's going to look at
that again for twenty years now. I personally found the
alternate flag just unacceptable. I didn't think it served any
purpose at all. I would actually like to see and
I'm sure it won't happen in my lifetime. I'd like
(22:24):
to see us as a republic. I mean, still within
the British Commonwealth, but I think really sensibly speaking Australia
and New zeal it should be republics. Now we're too
far away from the monarchy. It's irrelevant these days. So
when we become a republic then I think we should
(22:47):
look at a proper a proper design. I actually my
preferred flag. I'm not sure if it was an option,
but I love the flag of the United Tribes of
New Zealand. Do you know the one?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's a beautiful design, it has no Union on it,
it has the four stars, it's dignified, and I just
like the idea that we are in a broader sense
the United Tribes of New Zealands.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
That's true, and it also has some depth and resonates
emotionally already with a large number of New Zealanders. The
final question, do you still have a pig called Angelica?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I do have a pig called Angelica who's actually a
blake and he's a.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Big, poor, poor old confused engineer.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I know, but he doesn't seem to mind. And I
love him dearly, and I think the sentiment is reciprocated.
I just have to he's got a great, big paddock.
Sometimes he has a girlfriend, but he's on his own
at the moment, and I just have to call pig
pig at the at the gate and he's he belts
(24:01):
up the hill. Have you ever seen a pig gallop?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Well, he'll do it if if I call him. He's
very pleased to.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Wonder you'd like to get home? Yeah, for a welcome
like that, Sam, it's been wonderful to talk with you.
Your new movie deserves to be very, very successful because
it's very entertaining and I wish you all the best.
Thank you for taking Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
John.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Real Life made with help from New Zealand on air.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
One song seven years old.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Mama told me make yourself some friends, or you will
be lonelier.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You one hour, seven years old.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
For more from News Talks at b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio,
Real Life Your Slice of Life with John Cowen on
News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good and welcome to Real Life. I'm John Cowan. This
week a new movie opened. It's called Hunt for the
Worlder People. It's a great New Zealand movie. It opened
in ninety cinemas all over the country. I was very
fortunate to see a preview of the film and I'm
even more fortunate to be sitting here. If it stars
Sam Neil. Welcome Sam. It's a very entertaining movie. The
(00:55):
Berry Crump storyline. It's a farce, but it's it's quite
touching in parts two, isn't it. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I don't think it's a comedy as such, but I
think there's some very funny stuff in it.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
To me, it's my of you know, New Zealand drama
that is also funny.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
And yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I think there's some sad bits and some very touching
bits too.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It's interesting that the casting is nearly all comedians, people
that we know for their comedy roles, and they play
it as such. And in the middle you play this
curmudgeonly straight guy. You get some funny lines, but well, yeah,
you do contrast with the others quite a lot. You know.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
What's I've always grumbled about this that there's something about comedians.
Comedians can be and mostly are very good actors. Most
actors are not very good comedians. It doesn't work the
other way around at all.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Are you dismissing your own a comedic talent, because definitely,
because The Dish, which is one of my favorite movies,
is very funny. But I guess again, you're playing a
straight guy.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, someone, Well, someone's got to hold the tent.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
And keep it real.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And I think that's that's my job here as much
as center thing is that is heck kind of grounds
things right. Otherwise everyone would be just all over the shop.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Without being too much of a spoiler for people that
haven't seen it, and I imagine a lot of people
are going to see it. It's about a troubled boy
that goes to live out in the in the back
blocks with a family, and then you.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
The.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
One of the foster cares, takes off with the boy
unwillingly into the bush and you get hunted by the police.
Mayhem ensues, and it's got a lot of elements of
a good yarn, including even car chases and things thrown
in I think just for fun, really are they?
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Well?
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Isaac with Tiger was very keen to pay tribute, I
think to those classic New Zealand films from the seventies
and eighties, films like Sleeping Dogs, Hello, what is it?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Well, goodbye, good Hello, before we said goodbye to Smash Palace.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
You know those, Yes, And it's kind of traditional New
Zealand films that the police end up chasing you and
wanted to kill you. Yes, so it does have elements
of that.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, yes, Uh, speaking of Sleeping Dogs, that was your
first feature movie, wasn't it? And I teased Ian Mune
when I interviewed him a while back about how because
he was I think producing directing it. I think that
was in it and was in it. And he wrote
himself for the role where he steals your wife after
you and I'm thinking I stealing same Neil's lady, and
(03:52):
he laughed and admitted the unlikelihood of that.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Nothing unlikely about that, but I was interested. I bought
Mune's autobiography, which I enjoyed reading a lot but I
was very interested. It's interesting when you come across yourself
and someone else's book. And he talks about how in
the first week before we were looking at dailies. In
(04:16):
those days, it took about a week before you could,
you know, get have a look at.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
What you've done.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
He was grumbling to Roger Donaldson, who directed it, that
I didn't seem to be doing anything. I wasn't doing
any acting until he saw me on film, and then
he realized, actually I was acting. It just wasn't big
like him. You know, it's a big actor. I guess
that's a stage heritage.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Whereas I think you perhaps the camera is right up there,
the flick of an eye, the lift of an eyebrow,
it's all captured and amplified on screen.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
That's that's right, that's the point he was making. And
I didn't. I wasn't aware of this at all. But
a couple of years ago I did a charity thing
on stage here in in Auckland, was a fundraiser of
christ Church and Mune was in it. I was in it.
We were all doing tour Fraser it was one of
(05:17):
his players, and we were all doing monologues basically there's
about thirty actors in it, and I did a pretty
big performance on that and when I came off stage,
there was Mune waiting in the wings and as I
passed him, he said, old Ham, that must have been
a big performance if Ian Mune calls me a ham.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Now, I think that a lot of people are going
to go and watch this movie because they're very fond
of and loyal to yourself and a lot of the
other Keiwi actors that are in this film, and there's
a whole range of them. It's very much a Kiwi
movie written by Barry Crump and all the principles in
it are Kiwis. Do you think New Zealand movies do
(06:00):
have a particular character? Is a hallmarked in New Zealand films?
Is there something that makes them fun to be part of?
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
You could think you could make a more New Zealand
film than this. Apart from the fact that it's it
kind of references old New Zealand films. It's referencing all
sorts of things like the flake commercials from the from
the eighties, and you know they are all sorts of
little easter eggs that you can pick up along the way.
Having said that, we took it to Sundance where it
(06:30):
was enormously successful, to the Sundance Film Festival, and it
was very gratifying to see an international audience laughing at
kind of the same stuff that we like.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
And the fact that it's been produced by Tyker whiteit
director directed by him. That was a big part in
you accepting the wrong.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Absolutely a new all Tiger's work, and it's always cool
and always funny. And you know, I didn't really need
to read the script. I did, but I would have
done just trusted him enough. Yeah, absolutely trusted and would
trust them to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
The I heard him say that he quite enjoyed the
idea of getting a person that normally plays quite s
wive and smooth roles into a bush shirt and a
band haircut and out in the right. Actually, you've played
that role before in that Australian movie The Hunter. You
were charging around in the Tasmanian bush over there.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
I was pretty willy on that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
You're pretty willy in that as well. Perhaps I hope
you're not getting typecast as that grumpy old man with beards.
Your next film in Texas is are you going to
be bearded in that I am going to keep the
bed for that. I'm playing the patriarch. It's it's rather,
it's a serious thing. From a rather well known novel
called The Sun so O n And I played the
(07:51):
patriarch of a big, big old Texan family. I'll be bearded,
and I'll be carrying a gun and you know, riding
around in a stock saddle. You get to switch back
to an American accent.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I'll be doing a Texan accent.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
A Texan accent, you do a convincing one. I hope.
So it's work in progress at the moment. I hope
you don't become like Peter Sellers, who didn't really know
what his real voice was. Yes, it's interesting how people
can do voices and get almost lost in that. Now
we're hopping around a little bit here. You aim to
(08:28):
make the best Peno gree in the world. Pinodir bigger partn.
Can New Zealand actually really hope to make world class movies?
I mean New Zealand movies. We're very proud of them,
but they don't do as well in the box office
as say the Hollywood ones. Can we really expect to
turn out world beating cinema here as well.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, we're already have I mean, think of the Lord
of the Rings, of course, which you know, as massive
as they get. Yes, so yes, I mean, of course
a film like ours, is this current one for the
world of people as much by comparison, I mean the
massive budget films, there's a Lord of the Rings and
(09:13):
the Hobbits. But my guess is that this will more
than make its money back. It'll make a lot of
money for the budget because it's very good.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
He is hoping that's a good guess. This is real
life on Newstalk zb and my guest tonight is Sam Neil.
We're talking about Hunt for the Wilder People that opened
all over New Zealand this week. Intelligent interviews with interesting people.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It's real life on news talk zed Bee.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
You welcome back to real life. I'm John Cown talking
with Sam Neil, who stars in Hunt for the Wilder People,
which opened all over New Zealand this week. I hope
that you get a chance to see it. I saw
it thoroughly enjoyed it. Do you enjoy the opportunity to
work back in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
It's always good to come home because I travel a lot.
Not that I don't enjoy that, and I've worked in
didn't countless countries now, but working with your own people,
on your own stories, that's important, you know. I mean,
I think it's very important. It's easy to underrate how
(10:35):
important the arts are in the life of a country.
I was very disappointed, for instance, in the last News
Honors that, apart from the nighting of Jane Campion, the
arts were almost entirely ignored, whereas business. There were gongs
all over the place for people in business. Now that
(10:56):
there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it's incredibly
important that we have a voice in the arts, that
we have that our painters are valued, our poets, our writers,
our filmmakers, our potters. These are the people that articulate
what we are. That these are the people that help
(11:19):
us understand what we are, that give up nation to voice.
And I think there's the arts at the moment are
somewhat underappreciated by those that run things.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
When you were growing up, did you imagine that you
yourself would be in the arts or did you have
your eye fixed on something like your family's business.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
I imagine that's what I would probably end up doing.
That i'd be in business, you know, under my father,
or that I would be a soldier like my father
who had been in the army for twenty years. Luckily
it wasn't to be, because I think I would have
been hopeless in both roles, and I sort of ended up.
(12:04):
I muddled into acting, and I'm very fortunate for that.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Now. Acting was probably more for fun for the first
couple of decades of your life.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Yeah, Well, I started acting at school, as most people do,
mostly because I was hopeless at sports and it would
seem to be one thing that I enjoyed. And then
I went to university and I did a bit of
acting there. When I left university, it was apparent to
(12:37):
me that there was no living to be made as
an actor in New Zealand. It was very very rare
that you could actually make even half a decent living
from acting in those days, and there were no drama schools,
nothing like that. So I got a job at the
National Film Unit and I worked there as a sort
of as an editor and a director, and I wrote
stuff and I was there for about eight years, and
(13:01):
then acting sort of took over again. Roger Donaldson put
me in Sleeping Dogs and that led to working in
Australia and I went on from there.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
When you were a younger person, I've heard you say
that you were a stammer or a stutter of is
I can't pick up any indication that there's still a problem, and.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Well, other other stammers can pick it up, or former statters. Yeah,
I started really badly. It just kind of began to
evaporate when I was about fifteen or fourteen or fifteen
sixteen or something like that.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Did the acting help I think it probably did.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Actually, what I learned was and I am now I'm
a patron of the Stammers Society in Australia. I got
interested in it, in the whole subject again because my
youngest child started to stammer very badly when she was
about two, when she was beginning to speak, and it
(13:59):
got to the point where she could barely get a
word out. So we took her to a speech therapist.
We were advised to do so. I'd never heard of
a speech therapist and the first question we were asked
by the therapist was did either of you the parents
stutter as a child. And I put my hand up
and said yes, I'd studied very badly and she said, well,
(14:22):
that is the reason your child starters. It's often an
inherited condition. I'd always been told that I had hooping
cough when I was three years old, and that was
the trauma, and I'd started from then on. In fact,
this probably has probably been running through my family for generations.
(14:42):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So the drama probably aided your confidence too, because stemma
has often become very shy.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
I was very shy. I could barely in company that
I didn't know. I could barely get a word out
when I was small.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Isn't amazing that when you conquer something like that, and
you've also probably developed the skills of coping with being
an introvert in an extroverted thing, and that suits you
for acting. I suppose. Do you think there's a link
there that an introvert learning to overcome their shyness can
learn how to act in social situations, so they act
on they can act on screen.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I think it took me longer to get over the shyness. Yes,
that's all gone.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Now you reckon? Yeah. Some people say that stutters look
at words rolling up to them, like coming along on
a conveyor belt, and they see the words coming and
think I'm going to have trouble with that one, or
step around that one, or do do you do anything
like that? Still? Not really.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
I find sometimes if there's a word in a line
that I have to do that, I'll find a way
around it. That's more often an accent thing. You might
have trouble with certain words in a different accent. But
I do remember sitting at dinner for instance, or you know,
(16:02):
we'd go out to people's space for lunch or something
and sitting at the table and just in a flo sweat,
hoping that no one had actually asked me a question,
because real question means you have to answer, and and
I would just immediately blush and and I'd be paralyzed,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
So one of the people that I know you did
have dinner with was James Mason. He was quite influential
in your life.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, that was quite a bit later James James and
his wife Clarissa, she was Australian. They saw me in
a film called My Brinding Career and they took an
interest in me, just out of the blue, and they
got me to Europe. They sent me a ticket to Europe.
I stayed with them a couple of times in Switzerland
and we became very good friend. So James was a
(16:50):
mentor to me, very nice man, very abane and delightful company.
So he had a professional encouragement for you. He was
able to coach you and open doors. Not so much coach,
but but yeah, I opened some doors. I me an
agent in England and I don't know, there's just something
(17:13):
about my work that he and she responded to. I
don't quite know what it was. But when they would
come to London we'd have dinner and we finally did
a film together.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We did.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
A version of Ivanhoe, which was made for the BBC,
I think. And oddly enough I spoke about this on
to the listener the other day. I discovered two or
three years ago that this film is shown every Boxing
day in Sweden and it has been since nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Every Boxing day. Yeah. It's like the sound of music.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, and it stood Swedish tradition. All families sit down,
they watch it together, and you know, most Swedes have
watched it every year. And I'm the villain in it,
so you know, for of course that's a dastardly villain.
Brian Bird give beer or something like that. And so
(18:19):
for ten, you know, for two glorious hours. At the
end of every year, I'm the most hated man in Sweden.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Isn't that a wonderful thing. That's a great that's a
great privilege. I believe that at lass of wine that
you had with James Bason changed your life in other
ways too. Well, Yes, that's true.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
And I it was actually one night he said, let's
got to dinner tonight. I'm going to take it to
Charlie Chaplin's favorite restaurant. I said, that's fantastic, and we went.
It was the Auberge to something or other on Lake Geneva,
and we sat at Charlie Chapman's favorite table and his
(19:01):
his name was carved on the wall. He'd carved his
own name on this you know, agent can do that.
And James said, I think you should carve your name
under under Chelly Chaffins. I said, I can't. I can't
possibly do that. But that night he ordered a fantastic
bottle of wine. I'd never drunk anything like it. And
(19:23):
I said, what is this wine, James? And he said, Burgundy.
Don't forget it. And I haven't forgotten it. A cup
to fifteen years later, I had a piece of land
in central Targo where people like Ralph Mills, whose great
family friend was growing really good pin and noir that's
(19:43):
to say Burgundy, just up the road, and I thought
I'd like to do that too, because I'd become very
fascinated by pin and noir as a result of that
bottle of wine. So now I have four little vineyards.
We're called two paddocks or it's four vineyards, and that's
(20:05):
I think probably if I leave any legacy behind at all,
it will be my wife.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You get involved hands on in the production of it. Yep.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
We start picking on Monday, so.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
You're going to be down there involved in that. And
is that the place that you most of all think
of as home. Yeah, it is. It's something about getting
back to the central Otago big sky.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Yeah, so I think it's I mean, we've been in
My family's been in a Targo one hundred and fifty years,
so I feel like we're sort of rooted there. You know.
We used to go to Central Targo when we were kids.
So I'm very much associated with the best owns of
my life and I've just been down there. I've just
been fishing. I've got a six and a half pound
(20:53):
rainbow congratulations week, which is now back in the river.
I was catching lesse So I've got another couple of
weeks back home and then it's off to Texas for
five months.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
That must be hard sometimes. Do you ever get that
a deep ache just to get back? And do you
get homesick? I do get a bit homesick. But on
the other hand, I always have that New Zealand saying
that no one's more thrilled that in New Zealand are
getting on a plane. We love traveling, and I think
that's to deal with being in probably the most isolated
(21:29):
country in the world. Yes, I think we all enjoy
seeing a bit of the world, but doesn't it make
us appreciate it when we get back. As an international person,
you'd spend so much time away, it must give you
a perspective on New Zealand. And I know that you
have spoken out politically in elections in the past. There
must be things that you see about New Zealand that
(21:50):
you appreciate amazingly, but things that you also probably would
like to see change. What would be one of the
top things that you'd like New Zealand to embrace more
fully or change or drop. Is there anything that you'd
like to see New Zealand become more like?
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Well, it's something that we've been through the flag debate
and now we're told no one's going to look at
that again for twenty years now. I personally found the
alternate flag just unacceptable. I didn't think it served any
purpose at all. I would actually like to see and
I'm sure it won't happen in my lifetime. I'd like
(22:24):
to see us as a republic. I mean, still within
the British Commonwealth, but I think really sensibly speaking Australia
and New zeal it should be republics. Now we're too
far away from the monarchy. It's irrelevant these days. So
when we become a republic then I think we should
(22:47):
look at a proper a proper design. I actually my
preferred flag. I'm not sure if it was an option,
but I love the flag of the United Tribes of
New Zealand. Do you know the one?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yes? I do.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's a beautiful design, it has no Union on it,
it has the four stars, it's dignified, and I just
like the idea that we are in a broader sense
the United Tribes of New Zealands.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
That's true, and it also has some depth and resonates
emotionally already with a large number of New Zealanders. The
final question, do you still have a pig called Angelica?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
I do have a pig called Angelica who's actually a
blake and he's a.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Big, poor, poor old confused engineer.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
I know, but he doesn't seem to mind. And I
love him dearly, and I think the sentiment is reciprocated.
I just have to he's got a great, big paddock.
Sometimes he has a girlfriend, but he's on his own
at the moment, and I just have to call pig
pig at the at the gate and he's he belts
(24:01):
up the hill. Have you ever seen a pig gallop?
Speaker 1 (24:04):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I haven't.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Well, he'll do it if if I call him. He's
very pleased to.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
Wonder you'd like to get home? Yeah, for a welcome
like that, Sam, it's been wonderful to talk with you.
Your new movie deserves to be very, very successful because
it's very entertaining and I wish you all the best.
Thank you for taking Thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
John.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Real Life made with help from New Zealand on air.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
One song seven years old.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Mama told me make yourself some friends, or you will
be lonelier.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
You one hour, seven years old.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
For more from News Talks at b listen live on
air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
you go with our podcast on iHeartRadio
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