Sam Neill Inspired a Generation of Scientists

Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor who died at age 78 in Sydney, Australia, on Monday, had a long and varied résumé. He played everyone from an international spy (Possession) and a detective chief inspector (Peaky Blinders) to a legendary wizard (Merlin). He even played the literal spawn of the devil (Omen III: The Final Conflict).

But throughout his career, Neill was also known for scientist roles in films like The Dish and Event Horizon, with none more celebrated than Dr. Alan Grant, the rugged paleontologist and undisputed hero of Jurassic Park.

As fans paid tribute to Neill, remembering both his wonderful performances and the charming updates about the farm animals on his idyllic New Zealand vineyard, one clear theme emerged with respect to the iconic Dr. Grant.

“How many of us were inspired to become scientists after watching Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler?” wrote Lucky Tran, the director of science communication at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, in a post on X that included an image of Neill and costar Laura Dern examining a sick triceratops in a scene from Jurassic Park. Thomas Ronge, a marine geologist working for the Scientific Ocean Drilling Coordination Office at Texas A&M University, shared on Bluesky that the sci-fi blockbuster had led him to pursue studies in paleontology and that while he had ultimately gone into a different field, “I’m always Dr. Grant at heart.”

Speaking for myself, I can say that after seeing Jurassic Park at age 9 I entertained great dreams of being a paleontologist like Alan Grant (or perhaps an actor, like Sam Neill). Just what was it about this character that had kids clamoring to apply to STEM programs?

“The heroes of my favorite movie were level-headed scientists who used their wits, not guns or physical strength, to overcome obstacles,” Kevin Holloway, who worked as a neuroscience researcher at the University of Oregon in the late aughts and early ’10s, tells WIRED. “They also had a clarity of purpose and absolute conviction in their beliefs.”

As Grant, he says, Neill was “the quintessential ‘man of science’ role model [by] which all others are measured.” Ultimately, Holloway didn’t pursue a PhD, and he now works as a nurse “doing diabetic foot care, advanced wound care, and street outreach”—but he still “absolutely” credits Neill’s turn as Grant for steering him into science.

Jurassic Park hit theaters when Jim Porter was 23 and completing his undergraduate studies with a geology field camp in the western US, he recalls. “I read the [Michael] Crichton novel on the way there, then saw the movie in a small-town theater,” he says, noting that the fieldwork was “certainly different after that.” He loved Neill’s “convincing and endearing portrayal of a scientist whose priority was understanding and revering Earth’s history rather than opportunistically monetizing it,” saying this “reinforced my career choice as an environmental scientist.”

It wasn’t merely Grant’s distinction and principles as a researcher that made him such an aspirational figure for so many. He was also a potent counterexample to the violent, macho action stars of the 1980s and 1990s.

“He’s believable as a field scientist and also has such a gruff kindness about him,” says Jamie Anderson, who earned a DPhil in archaeological sciences from the University of Oxford in 2018 and calls Jurassic Park her favorite film. She cites “the way he takes on looking after the kids even though they’ve been driving him nuts” and his treatment of Dr. Sattler “as his equal and someone he’s proud of” as reasons that Grant made “a great antidote to more toxic masculine figures in many other action movies, especially from that era.”