‘Just a local’: rural New Zealand fondly remembers Sam Neill, its everyday star

Sam Neill raised money for the community cinema and traded banter in the local cafe, so to residents of the small towns near where he lived, the actor fitted right in He may have been New Zealand’s most famous, internationally beloved, film star, but to the small South Island communities near where he lived, Sam Neill was “just a local”. “There was no aspect of him that was: ‘Hey I’m Sam Neill and I’m walking down the main street,’” says Russell Garbut, who resides in Clyde, one of two tiny townships in central Otago that the actor frequented. “There was none of that sort of bullshit. I think he was an extremely down-to-earth guy, and was – and it sounds disparaging – but just a local, he fitted into the community.” Neill died, aged 78, in Sydney on Monday, sparking an outpouring of tributes from Hollywood heavyweights, politicians and the public. But in the rural towns where Neill was a local, news of his death has ignited a profound sense of loss. Neill lived in Earnscleugh valley, in New Zealand’s Central Otago region where he made wine under his label Two Paddocks and housed his menagerie of famously named farm animals. He was frequently spotted in t

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