STORIES ABOUT MY DAUGHTER
Kiwi acting great Sir Sam Neill, 75, shocked the world when he revealed he’d been diagnosed with stagethree blood cancer. In these two vignettes he wrote while undergoing chemotherapy last year, the Jurassic Park star recounts two heartwarming tales about his youngest daughter Elena, 32, with the actor adding that writing them was a “lifesaver” for him. WHAT DOES YOUR DADDY DO?
When my youngest daughter, Elena, was small and at a new school of some kind (I didn’t like any of them much), the teacher asked the circle of little children around her, “What does your mummy or your daddy do for a job?”
The little hands went up in the air and the answers flew thick and fast. My mummy’s a lawyer. My daddy’s a “countant”. My mummy builds houses. And so on. When it came to Elena, the answer about me was both perceptive and entirely accurate. “My daddy sits in caravans.” Yes, it’s true. That’s what I’ve done much of my life: sit in caravans, or trailers as they say in the USA. Sitting, waiting for someone to tell me what to do, somewhere near a film set.
I used to sit and read the paper, or sometimes even the script. Nowadays, I stare at my iPhone looking for enlightenment – it’s never there.
Once in a while, there’s a knock on the door and the assistant to someone’s assistant, who is an assistant to someone else, might kindly ask you if you’d like a cup of tea. Of course I would. If you’re really lucky they might even bring you lunch, but that would be the assistant to the first assistant who brought you tea.
When Elena would visit me at work, that is what I would be doing. Sitting in a trailer, in a carpark somewhere, having a cuppa, waiting: her daddy at work.
It doesn’t sound like a life well lived, does it? At least it’s quiet.
But, once in a while, someone does say, “We need you on set, Mr Neill.” And that’s when you emerge, blinking, into the daylight. You walk a few metres and spend a few minutes doing what it is you do. Act. Once in a while, with luck, you might even act well.
And, just possibly, you might even go further, walk a few more metres, and actually live some life. That life, as well as that acting, is what this book is about. There’s nothing terribly exceptional about it, but it is mine. I did a little more than sit in trailers. Much of it I found amusing and rewarding. It was all a surprise, this I know. I’m far luckier, in hindsight, than I deserved.
WHERE ARE THEY, DADDY?
In 1995, I made a film called Restoration, with Robert Downey Jr, Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, David Thewlis and Ian McKellen. It’s based on one of my favourite novels, by Rose Tremain. I play King Charles II, and I think I was rather good in it. I’m too nervous to go back and check, so I’ll leave you to do that.
This Charles is powerful, randy, capricious, dangerous, seductive and oh-so-smooth. A dream part, like a pavlova cake, and I consumed it with gusto. Michael Hoffman directed this film – it’s stunning to look at, in part due to Eugenio Zanetti’s design, but also the most extraordinary wardrobe, including mine, by James Acheson. I looked a million pounds, if not guineas. Waistcoats galore, enormous hats sporting ostrich feathers, blooming breeches, thigh-high boots, moustaches, spaniels, you name it. I looked so fabulous, I hardly needed to act, but I acted my pants off anyway.
The pants, come to think of it, the underpants, were the real thing. James is such a stickler for detail that even what you wore around your privates was exactly what the king would’ve worn in 1660. No Jockey support for me, oh dear me, no.
We shot much of it at Shepperton Studios, and I made sure that the family came out on the biggest day of all – the wedding of Robert Merivel. This gilded event took place around an ornamental lake inside a sound stage. There were swans, ladies-in-waiting, an enormous banquet... everything was excessively gorgeous. Beautiful Polly Walker, playing my mistress, is being married off to the hapless Merivel, while the
‘I particularly wanted to wow Elena, who was about four’
king, her lord and master, looks on. You cannot imagine how resplendent I was.
I was sitting in my trailer when the word came that my family had arrived. I ensured that I was fully kitted out to make the maximum impression. I particularly wanted to wow Elena, who was about four or five then.
There came a knock on the trailer door. I flung it open; my hat could hardly fit through the door, let alone the rest of my sumptuous costume, but I leapt anyway in all my glory to the ground before them.
I was sure they would faint and swoon at first sight, and indeed there were gasps of admiration from most. Apart from the little one. She looked baffled. Nothing made sense, it seemed. Now I myself felt disappointed.
“Daddy?” she said in a quiet voice.
I leant down to her, almost tumbling under all the weight of jewellery draped around me. “What, darling?” “Daddy, where are they?” “What, Bubs? Where are what?”
“Daddy, where are the... where are the dinosaurs?” Sigh.