Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - BONUS: Sam Neill's Legal Name Isn't Sam...

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

We chat to legendary actor Sam Neill ahead of the release of his brand new book and he recalls stories of his real name, why he doesn't like being a 'celebrity' and how he does his own washing!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Hits, the Jono and Ben podcast. Sam Neill. Oh, there you go. Lovely to see you. Congratulations on the book. They say don't judge a book by its cover, but if someone didn't know you and were looking at your book and the cover, what do you think they'd think the book was about?

There's a very puzzled-looking bloke on the cover. I think it's me. And I think that reflects the book itself because so much of my life has been a puzzle. You were diagnosed with cancer and you thought, well, I better write a book, get your thoughts out while you weren't able to work. What was that process like? Yeah, well, it was a bit bleak for a while. I had to live. So I thought I better do something useful with my time. I really didn't mean to write a book.

That wasn't the intention. It just sort of turned into that eventually. I realized the stories I was sort of collecting for my kids. I've only scratched the surface of stories, really. I think I'd got to 400 pages. I thought, oh, look, I think we'll stop here. I might have lost them. It was enjoyable to do. And it really, because I was

entertaining myself at the end of the day. Did you have a publisher signed on from the get go? Or you're like, hey, I've written a book and then you shop it around. I gave it to a guy who's an editor of a literary magazine. I said, what do you think? Is this a book? He read it and said, yeah, this is absolutely a book. I'm going to send it to three publishers that I trust. And it took a year to come out in publication. I think they really hurried up the printing process and so on because they thought, let's get it done in case he dies. But that's one of the things we love about you as well you know you could have got caught up in that that lifestyle i guess but you love coming back to new zealand it's your home base you've got

the winery i think there was a part in the book where your agent's like you shouldn't be doing your own laundry what are you doing but that's what you did yeah i don't see any point in changing my lifestyle i love being in central target as far far as lifestyle goes, I think there are sort of two jobs that go with being a screen actor. One is being an actor and being as good as you can, and I give it a crack, you know. The other one is you can choose to be a celebrity. I've always chosen not to be a celebrity,

and that takes a lot of work. You've got to have a publicist and you've got to you know you've got to wear the right togs and be in Vogue magazine it's very rewarding if you want to go that way and you can you know people pay you a lot more to be in movies because you're a celebrity but that never interested me at all in fact I'm quite the opposite I would think the intrusions in your life would be completely unpalatable. People following you around with paparazzi and so on. It's just awful. But I've got friends who are celebrities and they seem to be okay with it.

They seem to be very, very rich and happy in life. I don't know about happy but they're certainly very rich uh so you're telling just going back to the washing thing you're telling me sam neill you that shoot you're wearing right now you washed you folded you did it all yeah i just had to actually i actually had to turn off my washing machine because i was doing a load but before i caught you i was going to do it and you might have thought it was something else. It's my moshing machine. Sam Neill, the book is called Did I Ever Tell You This?

And reading through the bits we did, there's a lot you haven't told us. So I don't want to give away too much because it looks like a fascinating read. But I was surprised there's many in the world your real name, not even Sam. Yes. Look, you know, I'm a fourth-generation New Zealander, but we came out when I was seven. And I arrived in New Zealand with the unfortunate first name of Nigel, which I realized very early on was liability. So I was Nigel Neal. My best friend was a boy called Nigel Nutt.

Very, very funny fellow. But Nigel Nutt is almost a bigger liability than Nigel. And we decided we would change our names. He became Bill and I became Sam because we like Westerns and they sound, they were sort of names that cowboys had. That was a really very smart decision I made because Nigels's in diminishing supply. I don't know how many there are in New Zealand, but I'm sure they're all uncomfortable with it just as I am. So is Nigel on your passport?

I'm afraid it does. All my official papers hope to sign him. And they say, what is that? Oh, never mind. It's on my passport. Never mind. You'll start bullying me.

I just don't, I don't need it right now. We've got Sam Neill with us. Hey, now your health, are you fine now? Are you through the cancer? Yeah, I've been in remission for eight months or something

and had to go in and get beaten up with chemo once in a while. But I'm in remission and I'm feeling really good and I'm taking tennis lessons. Oh, we're so happy to hear that. Sam, now before we go, your new book is called Did I Ever Tell You This?

But before we go, we wanted to play a quick game, Character Assassination, where we see if you remember the character's name you played from the movie. Now, you've played over 150 of them. All right, obviously Jurassic Park, easy one. Alan Grant. That's right. Hunt for the Wilder People. Uncle Hick. Yes. Peaky Blinders. You're in Peaky Blinders. Oh yeah. Major Campbell. That's right. Wimbledon,

another tennis. This was a movie you were in as well. Character, Kirsten Dunst's father. Dennis Bradbury. Yes, you're right. I want to take it it Kirsten Dunst's father and the piano Stuart yeah you did well that's not bad actually I'm surprised myself yeah

we can go through the other 135 characters if you want Samuel we really do love catching up with you we're very pleased to know you're a lot better

and we can't wait for the book to be out there and to read more of it it seems like a fascinating read thanks guys lovely to talk to you again