HAVING THE BUSIEST TIME OF HIS LIFE
At 72, it seems Kiwi screen legend Sam Neill has never been busier.
He’ll be mixing with telly folk on Thursday at the Huawei Mate30 Pro New Zealand Television Awards Gala.
Neill and good friend Teuila Blakely will present three awards together including Best Documentary, Best Drama Series and Best Feature Drama.
The Southland-based star is also up for an award as Best Presenter: Entertainment for his Prime Series, Uncharted. The documentary is also nominated for Best Factual Series and Best Director: Documentary.
Neill, who came to prominence on Kiwi screens in the 1970s in Sleeping Dogs, was recently on the big screen in Aussie movies Palm Beach and Ride Like a Girl. A few weeks back, he announced he would reunite with his 90s Jurassic Park co-stars Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum on Jurassic World 3.
“Did I mention, delighted to be working with these old friends again? It’s a dinosaur movie. I am unable to confirm whether Jeff will be taking his shirt off again, sorry. I’m a lot greyer now, but they are much the same,” Neill wrote on Twitter.
But there’s more. In September Neill attended the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain for his movie Blackbird, in which he stars alongside Oscar winners Kate Winslet and Susan Sarandon.
He is also in Rams, another Aussie movie about a decades-long feud between two sheep farming brothers that comes to a head when disaster strikes their flocks.
He is scheduled to film The Guinee Pig Club, directed by his Sleeping Dogs director, Roger Donaldson, alongside British actor Richard E. Grant, a movie about Kiwi born plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe, who risks his life and career to save injured British pilots during World War II.
And he is also poised to squeeze into his hectic schedule the film Freedom Flight — the true story of a hijacking by unarmed students fleeing Communism.
Sam, we salute you.
Congratulations to singer Carly Binding and her partner Andy Mateljan who last weekend welcomed baby boy Felix Leo Mateljan.
Felix is Binding’s second son. The father of her first, 8-year-old London, is her former long-term partner Matthew Ridge.
Binding and Mateljan have been dating for more than a year, but keep their romance private. Binding is very pleased with the influence her new Croatian man has on London.
Last Father’s Day Binding wrote on Instagram:
“Happy Father’s Day Andy. You’re the best stepdad to London and very soon you’ll be an amazing father to our new little guy.”
In recent years 41-year-old Binding — who found fame in 1999 on NZ’s first reality show Popstars, forming girl group TrueBliss — has stepped out of the limelight.
She is the only member of the band not to reunite with the other four — Jo Cotton, Erika Takacs, Keri Harper and Megan Alatini — as they pop up and sing at bars around town.
But last week’s announcement that new programme Anika Moa Reunited would bring once-famous bands back together to perform poses the question — can Anika Moa tempt Binding back for her show?