Lifestyle
Her water bill was ‘insane.’ So she tore out her lawn and planted a ‘wabi-sabi’ wonderland
Water-hungry lawns are symbols of Los Angeles’ past. In this series, we spotlight yards with alternative, low-water landscaping built for the future.
Julia Lee had no need for a new garden when she and her husband purchased their Cheviot Hills home eight years ago. The traditional 1950 home came with mature tropical plants in the back and a sprawling grass hillside lawn in front, and it suited them just fine. But as drought and wildfires dragged on in California in recent years, she started to question whether keeping the thirsty lawn made sense.
“Our water bill was insane,” she says as she offers a tour of the former lawn, which is now filled with colorful native plants and drought-tolerant plants. “It was a waste of space. Our kids were getting older and didn’t play on the lawn. There was just no reason to keep a big green lawn.”
After reading a Times story about Georg Kochi, a retiree who swapped his Koreatown lawn with plants suited for California, Lee was inspired by Kochi’s wild, wabi-sabi-style garden, which embraces the art of imperfect beauty.
“I’m into chaos,” Lee says, bending down to smell the minty fragrance of a native Woolly bluecurls (Trichostema lanatum) shrub. “It’s an accurate reflection of my personality.”
Lee’s lawn in Cheviot Hills before she sheet-mulched it with cardboard.
(Julie Lee)
So in 2022, Lee decided to replace her lawn with a drought-tolerant landscape, using the LADWP Free Landscape Design Program, now called the Landscape Efficiency Assistance Program, for help. She also applied for the Metropolitan Water District’s turf replacement rebate, which was $3 per square foot at the time (now $5), and got $5,310 back when the garden was finished.
She wanted to learn more about native plants, so she took a garden design class at the Theodore Payne Foundation for Native Plants in Sun Valley. But the class felt overwhelming. “I love Theodore Payne,” she says, “but I hate measurements and trying to figure out hardscape. I’m not a math person. The instructor wanted us to use a compass and draw a scale drawing of the whole lawn, and I thought, ‘I can’t do this.’”
Feeling paralyzed, she thought about hiring someone to help her, even though she didn’t want to spend the money on a landscape designer. But when Lee shared her frustrations with her graduate school adviser, noted author and avid gardener Jamaica Kincaid, she got the encouragement she needed. “She told me to do it myself,” Lee says, “as she designed her own gardens herself, and they are idiosyncratic just like she is.”
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1. Native Clarkia. 2. A ladybug sits on a dill plant. 3. Non-native Borage.
With encouragement from Kincaid, Lee, 49, began by planting small sages that would grow quickly and help prevent erosion, since water, mulch and rain often ran down the hillside to the sidewalk. She also spread Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds throughout the landscape, including California poppies, Arroyo lupine, Desert Bluebells and Clarkia. In the spring, the yard was full of colorful wildflowers, but for the rest of the year, it stayed dormant. “People loved it because it was like a wildflower meadow in the middle of the city,” she says.
Walking through Lee’s garden, as birds, bees and butterflies zoom around the yard’s bright flowers, it’s obvious she loves color. With help from her friend Ben Liou, who replaced his lawn with native plants, Lee filled the space with a lively mix of sages and flowering perennials, including yellow Bladderpod, pink Palmer’s Penstemon, blue California lilac and poppies. Also, in the mix, there are California poppies, Channel Islands Tree poppies and tall Matilija poppies that look like fried eggs.
An endangered Western monarch caterpillar nibbles on some California native milkweed.
A “Think Global, Plant Local” sign rests next to a handwritten plant identification tag.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
She was surprised to find that working in her garden helped her connect with her neighbors in unexpected ways.
“I was worried the neighbors would complain,” she says. “But I’ve met so many people because I’m out here every day. Other gardeners are curious and often ask me, ‘What’s that interesting yellow plant? Oh, Palmer’s Indian Mallow?’ I even know all the dogs’ names now.”
When she and her gardener sheet-mulched the front yard with cardboard Amazon boxes she had collected from her neighbors in October, one neighbor joked that it looked ready for Halloween. “She told me it looks like a graveyard,” Lee says, laughing.
An aerial view of Lee’s garden.
Not all the plants survived, partly because half the garden is shaded by a large magnolia tree on the parking strip. Lee estimates she lost about 70% of her plants in the first year because she didn’t water enough. “The very first year you’re supposed to water regularly, and I did not hand-water enough, so everything basically died. The water bill went down dramatically, though.”
Three years later, after losing so many plants, she decided to add an irrigation system. Liou and her gardener helped Lee install it and build a bioswale to catch rainwater, using stones from Valley Builders Supply and some larger rocks from Bourget Bros. “We installed it in one day,” she says. “It was my birthday present to myself.”
Lee installed the bioswale in just one day with help from a friend and her gardener.
At first, she was nervous about adding something so different from the other traditional lawns on her street. “There weren’t any other houses that had anything like that,” she says. “But now I like it because it breaks up the front lawn into separate planting sections.” She can also walk down the bioswale to work in the garden. “I find garden maintenance so relaxing,” she adds. “It’s meditative.”
Lee says plants help her connect with people. One neighbor who knew the home’s previous owner gave her succulents. Another brought her some aromatic California sagebrush, also called Cowboy Cologne. “I really like the fact that I can point to certain things and remember who gave them to me,” she says. “That’s really nice.”
She hopes the golden yarrow will spread, and she’s especially proud of the large white sage she grew from seeds that a friend gave her. “It’s so happy over there,” she says, clearly excited by its growth. “Look at how big it is. I am so proud of it.”
Not all the plants in the unamended soil are California natives or even drought-tolerant. Lee kept some plants that have been growing in the yard for decades, like the jasmine climbing around the front of the house as well as the white roses. “I really don’t like lantana,” she says, “but I hate killing things.”
Someday she hopes to set up a free seed library, and she’s excited to see bluebird hatchlings in the bluebird house that Venice beekeeper Ian Kimbrey installed in her tree. “I just need to be patient,” Lee says about the bluebird box, which is still empty. “I’ve entered that phase of my life where I just love to see so many birds and bees and other animals in my garden. It’s good for my mental health.” She also wants to add a water feature where birds and butterflies can bathe and sip, and she plans to plant more berries to attract more pollinators.
Lee, who grew up in L.A. and teaches English at Loyola Marymount University, says her unkempt garden reminds her of Los Angeles in some ways. “Everybody just wants to look young and perfect all the time, and that’s not healthy,” she says. “My garden is beautiful in the spring; then it goes dormant in the summer. And that’s OK.”
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1. Blue non-native Cornflowers. 2. Pink Cosmos, also a non-native. 3. Lee reaches to sniff some hardy Cleveland sage 4. A native Clarkia flower. 5. Pink and white native Clarkia flowers.
She hopes her story will encourage others who who can’t afford a landscape designer or simply feel overwhelmed by the idea of replacing their lawn. “I think sometimes it’s helpful just having somebody who’s there to hold your hand,” she says of her friend Liou. “For me, that was critical. I don’t think I would have ever made any progress without him.”
The project was ultimately about more than just saving water. It gave Lee a chance to connect with her community while experimenting in what she calls a “test garden.” She calls her garden a work in progress, and although she has suffered failures along the way, she values the friendships she has made outside her front door. “My garden doesn’t look designed because it isn’t. I’ve learned it’s OK if things aren’t perfect.”
Actually, she says, an imperfect,-always-evolving garden is “a good lesson for life.”
Lee looks for bees inside the Matilija poppies in her garden.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Plants used in this garden
California native shrubs/flowers
Coulter’s Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri)
Pigeon Point Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis “Pigeon Point”)
Twin Peaks No. 2 Dwarf Coyote Bush (Baccharis pilularis “Twin Peaks No. 2”)
Lilac Verbena “De La Mina” (Verbena lilacina “De La Mina”)
Armstrong California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Armstrong”)
Marin Pink California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum “Marin Pink”)
“Bert’s Bluff’ California Fuchsia (Epilobium canum)
Catalina California Fuchsia (Epilobium “Catalina”)
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea)
California Sagebrush (Artemesia Californica)
California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
Red Buckwheat (Eriogonum grande var. rubescens)
“Warriner Lytle” Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum “Warriner Lytle”)
Ashyleaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum cinereum)
Lee grew the white sage from seed.
Sea Cliff Buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium)
Ceanothus “Julia Phelps”
Yankee Point Carmel Ceanothus (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus var. griseus “Yankee Point”)
Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa)
Woolly Blue Curls (Trichostema lanatum)
Golden Currant (Ribes aureum var. gracillimum)
Bush Monkeyflower (Diplacus longiflorus)
Jelly Bean Red (and Pink, and Orange, and Fiesta Marigold) Monkeyflower (Diplacus “Jelly Bean Red,” etc.)
Canyon Prince Giant Rye (Elymus condensatus “Canyon Prince”)
Island Alumroot (Heuchera maxima)
Santa Ana Cardinal Alumroot (Heuchera “Santa Ana Cardinal”)
California bee plant (Scrophularia californica)
California Huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum)
Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus)
Fragrant Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia fragrans)
“Whirly Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Whirly Blue”)
“Celestial Blue” Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Celestial Blue”)
Winnifred Gilman Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Winnifred Gilman”)
Allen Chickering Cleveland sage (salvia clevelandii “Allen Chickering”)
“Bee’s Bliss” sage (Salvia “Bee’s Bliss”)
“Mrs. Beard” creeping sage (Salvia sonomensis “Mrs. Beard”)
Russian sage (Salvia yangii)
Santa Barbara Mexican Bush sage (Salvia leucantha “Santa Barbara”)
Deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens)
California bush sunflower (Encelia californica)
Margarita BOP penstemon (Penstemon heterophyllus “Margarita BOP”)
Palmer’s Indian Mallow (Abutilon palmeri)
Island Mallow (Malva assurgentiflora)
White sage (salvia apiana)
Black sage (saliva mellifera)
Butterfly bush (Buddleja)
California Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Oregano (Origanum vulgare)
French lavender (Lavandula dentata)
Bush Anemone (Carpenteria californica)
Channel Islands tree poppy (Dendromecon hartfordii)
Manzanita
Blue Grama (Bouteloua gracilis)
Showy Island snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa)
Bladderpod (Cleomella arborea)
Wildflowers (Native and non-native)
California poppies (Eschscholzia californica)
Blue Globe gilia (gilia capitata)
Elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata)
“Farewell to Spring” Clarkia (Clarkia amoena)
Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus)
Theodore Payne’s Rainbow Mix wildflower seeds
“Indian Summer” Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta, “Indian Summer”)
Cosmos (cosmos bipinnatus)
Various breadseed poppies (papiva somniferum)
Here’s something American concertgoers might not know: before a musician from another country can take the stage in the U.S., someone has to file paperwork with the federal government on their behalf. And not just any paperwork — a petition, hundreds of pages long, stacked with press clippings, award documentation, testimonial letters from other artists, venue contracts, a detailed tour itinerary, and evidence that the artist is legitimately accomplished at what they do.
And that’s just to start the clock in a process that may take over a year to complete.
This is the reality for international artists — from musicians to painters, dancers to comedians — who want to come to the U.S. to share their work. It’s a complicated, expensive process that arts advocates say has long made the country a difficult place for foreign artists to access. But now, they say it’s gotten much worse.
The time it takes to process a visa has dramatically increased. The number of available interview slots at U.S. embassies is backlogged. Application costs have surged. And there’s an added layer of uncertainty: paperwork can be perfect, fees can be paid, and yet artists still can be turned away at the border.
For U.S. audiences, all of this means a quiet loss of global cultural exchange.
What does the artist visa process look like?
To illustrate the nonimmigrant visa process for artists, let’s take Kongero, a small, Swedish folk a cappella group that completed its second U.S. tour last fall.
First step: File a petition.
The group’s booking agent planned the tour and gathered all the necessary documentation to file a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to demonstrate that the group qualified for a P-3 visa, the category for culturally unique artists.
Once USCIS approved the petition, each individual artist still needed to wait for a separate visa interview at a U.S. consulate in their country of residence.
Swedish Folk’appella group Kongoro, Anna Wikenius, left, Lotta Andersson, Sophia Hultqvist Kott and Emma Björling perform in Greensboro, Vt., in December 2023.
Danielle Devlin
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Danielle Devlin
According to several artists and attorneys, nonimmigrant visa processing had historically taken around two to four months, though processing time started to increase after a backlog built up during the pandemic, and then increased further after the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration.
Visas can be withheld and reviewed again any time the federal government announces an immigration policy change, like a travel ban update, or revisions to the petition review policy, said Zelo Safi, a senior attorney with the Artistic Freedom Initiative. There have been several similar changes during the Trump Administration.
Right now, the average time to review a P visa petition like Kongero’s is 11 1/2 months. Processing for an O-1 visa petition — for individual artists of “extraordinary ability” — has grown to a little over a year. The problem is that the government won’t even accept petitions more than a year in advance for all O visas, which are temporary work visas for those with extraordinary ability or achievement.
According to one manager of a dance troupe from Spain, the process is “completely out of sync with how the arts industry works.” Like many artists and managers NPR reached out to, this dance troupe manager requested that NPR not use their name out of fear that there would be reprisals against their future visa applications. Others declined to be interviewed for the same reason.
A statement to NPR from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said that the new procedures are due to “increasing threats to public safety and national security.” It continued, “Verifying identities and personal histories from various countries requires a rigorous process — one that prioritizes the safety of the American people over everything else.”
Step two: take out your wallets
If you can’t wait a year — and most artists can’t — you pay. Specifically, you pay $2,965 per petition for premium processing, another travel fee that has increased in recent months. According to immigration attorneys, paying that fee is essentially a mandatory step for artists if they want to make their scheduled tour dates.
Kongero paid it, and they still ran into trouble. The group was granted only two months of entry instead of the year they’d applied for, forcing them to cancel their planned 2026 summer, fall and winter appearances.
Matthew Covey, executive director of Tamizdat, a legal nonprofit that helps performing artists navigate U.S. visa processing, has watched his client numbers drop since premium processing effectively became mandatory. He says that they’re choosing not to come to the U.S., because for many, the cost of total travel expenses has become too great.
“The current situation is [that] a tour that would have been marginal and maybe break-even, even five years ago, is a losing-money project now,” he said.
Step three: the interview
Once USCIS approves a petition, each individual artist still needs to wait for and complete a separate visa interview at a U.S. consulate in their country of residence. It is the Department of State that issues visas if everything checks out. With current backlogs, an interview can take months to schedule, and they cannot be missed.
Group member Emma Björling missed the first week of a two-month U.S. tour after the Trump administration instituted a new, mandatory in-person interview requirement last September.
When the new requirement was announced, she was on tour with a different musical group in Canada. Now, because of the new policy, she first needed to fly all the way back to Sweden to do the interview, before returning to North America to do the U.S. tour.
The U.S. tour ended up running $8,000 in the red. Kongero won’t return to the U.S. in 2026.
“With all the additional fees and costs and troubles and stress … it’s not worth it, not financially, and not stress-wise and workload-wise,” Björling said.
In a statement, the Department of State said, “Under President Trump, the United States is unapologetic in implementing America First visa policies. We welcome the many foreign artists who follow the required procedures and meet all of the visa requirements under U.S. law.”
But if your paperwork is approved and your interview is completed, and your fees are paid, congratulations! You have a visa!
But does that mean you get to enter the country?
Maybe not.
Step four: get past the border
Once artists have their travel arrangements set, their petition approved and their passport stamped, one final hurdle awaits once they arrive in the U.S.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have final authority at ports of entry — and arts organizations say the current climate has introduced a new level of unpredictability in how that authority gets used.
Comedian and theater-maker Alaa Shehada had come to the U.S. twice before to perform his one-man show, The Horse of Jenin, about growing up in the West Bank. He had a valid O-1B visa when he landed at John F. Kennedy Airport last November for another scheduled performance. But this time around, he says officers pulled him aside for additional questioning as soon as they saw his Palestinian Authority passport.
Alaa Shehada in The Horse of Jenin.
Dario & Misja Photography
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Dario & Misja Photography
After hours of questioning, Shehada said he was handcuffed and transferred to an immigration detention facility in New Jersey, where he described spending the night with other detainees in a cramped room on a concrete floor, shocked and confused.
He was placed on a return flight to his residence in Amsterdam the following morning — one day before his scheduled performance in Massachusetts. Neither he nor his producer received a clear explanation for why his visa was rejected. In a statement to NPR, CBP said Shehada was refused entry for “not being forthcoming with facts” during his interview with CBP officers.
“When an immigrant attempts to enter the U.S. without possessing an immigrant visa or is not forthcoming with facts during an interview, travelers may be subject to detention and refusal as statutes or visa terms may be violated,” the statement read. “A visa is a privilege, not a right, and only those who respect our laws and follow the proper procedures wil
l be welcomed.”
About a month later, the Trump administration issued an expansive travel ban that suspended visa issuance to individuals applying using any travel documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority.
“Of course, it is scary to sit with people with power who can just kill your dreams as simple as that,” Shehada said, who had planned to tour additional U.S. and Canadian cities. “You feel how unfair and humiliating that is.”
Covey says there’s heightened scrutiny at U.S. ports of entry, but less consistency with how that scrutiny is applied. In a statement, CBP said, “Admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis using law enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection. CBP officers have the authority to question travelers, conduct inspections, and determine admissibility consistent with U.S. law.”
Jennifer Roe, executive director of Folk Alliance International, which connects artists with presenters globally, says that this means there’s no room for even the smallest of mistakes.
“I know a lot of artists are fearful of coming into the U.S.,” she said. “They’re hearing stories of being asked random questions at the border and being sent home because they didn’t answer something correctly.”
Ripple effects
When an international artist cancels their tour, the effects ripple outward.
The presenters who were stops on Shehada’s upcoming visit had already begun marketing the show and selling tickets. The New York Theatre Workshop had built an entire festival around the show. Boom Arts, a small presenter in Portland, had rented a theater for Shehada’s live performance. While several of the presenters were able to switch to showing a filmed version of the show, Shehada’s tour producer Jenny Tibbels said the losses totaled tens of thousands of dollars.
Shehada’s performance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Fine Arts Center had been planned for nearly a year before it was canceled at the last minute. Executive Director Jamilla Deria said the organization had been eager to share a story from a Palestinian artist with the community.
“In Western Massachusetts, where our communities are more rural, access to storytelling and the perspective of folks who are coming from parts of the world that you don’t have direct engagement with is not only lost for that night, but maybe lost for good,” she said.
Tracy Francis, a presenter with Boom Arts, said that recent travel bans and changes in immigration policy are forcing her to make difficult decisions about which international artists she can safely invite to share their art in person. She’s already shaped her next season around which countries’ artists are realistically likely to be allowed in.
“I was bringing more European artists for the first time next season, just because their visas are more likely to get approved,” she said. “I also was more careful about making sure that artists I am bringing are on a larger tour, so there’s more shared costs.”
Shehada said his experience traumatized him.
“This experience was so hard and deeply hurtful, so the idea of coming back becomes so hard,” he said. “I would love to go and meet the international audiences, the Americans. I have lots of people and friends in the U.S,, and of course, this is my mission as an artist. This is my approach to reach audiences, but with that experience, right now, I don’t feel like going back at all.”
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital. Chloee Weiner mixed the audio. Danielle Scruggs edited the visuals.
My favorite memory of the 2026 World Cup happened last month. By the late morning of June 18 in Koreatown, hours ahead of the Mexico vs. South Korea group-stage match, it was apparent that the neighborhood would be unrecognizable by kickoff.
I had heard rumblings about the Korean Festival Foundation’s watch party, but once I found out it would take place at Seoul International Park, I was almost dissuaded entirely. Although it is the beloved destination of my dog’s morning walks, its insignificant size and awkward location just off Olympic Boulevard didn’t seem appropriate for such a coveted event. So, I went to scout it out beforehand — and I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. There were already about 100 to 200 fans in the park, about six hours before the first whistle; laughing, drinking, lending a hand to vendor setups.
My apartment is only about six-odd blocks from the park, but closer to the game, I noticed a gigantic wave of red, lavender and white jerseys already crashing toward the watch party. It took my roommates and me about 30 minutes to walk the half-mile at 4 p.m., squeezing past fervent fans to eke out a spot in front of one of the two humongous screens situated on either side of Irolo Street.
Unfortunately for us, all of the good vantage points were taken. A mass in front of both screens was impenetrable; smaller televisions hooked up to generators were already seized by 10 too many eyes; even the roofs surrounding the park were full of attendees much bolder and athletic than me. We settled on the soccer field in the park, where we could juggle a ball around a bit while watching the match on our phones (and thank you to my girlfriend’s dad for his Peacock subscription).
The first half onscreen was mostly uneventful, but off-screen, I was able to witness a sort of camaraderie seen rarely in sprawling Los Angeles. People were swarming vendors from eateries all around Koreatown, dance circles formed around speakers blasting banda music, and “oohs” and “ahhs” at every missed shot were in perfect sync. Then, it happened: a goal in the 50th minute by Luis Romo of the Mexican side. The park and its surroundings exploded into a collective cheer that tickled my rib cage and resonated deep in my ear canal to the point I had to cover my ears. I can hardly remember if I joined the chorus, or if the excitement was so heavy that I just felt like an equal part of it.
Seeing my neighborhood in this light will stick with me much longer than the 1-0 result, or the fact that neither of these teams (both of which I partially rooted for) made it far into the tournament. But these memories, I believe, are what the World Cup is really about.
So tell us about your most cherished memory of the 2026 World Cup in L.A. so far. And remember, no moment is too small. We may feature it in an upcoming story.
Sam Neill arrives at the premiere of “Apples Never Fall” on March 12, 2024, in Los Angeles.
Richard Shotwell/AP Photo/Invision
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Richard Shotwell/AP Photo/Invision
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Sam Neill, a smoothly elegant and versatile actor whose career moved from art film to blockbuster as he dodged velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” to playing Holly Hunter’s husband in “The Piano,” has died. He was 78.
In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Neill died on Monday in Sydney, according to a statement posted to the actor’s social media page.
His death was “sudden and unexpected,” the statement said, adding that he “remained cancer free” when he died. A cause of death wasn’t specified.
“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his family wrote.
Actor came to world’s notice with ‘Dead Calm’ and ‘My Brilliant Career’
Neill was one of a host of actors and directors who achieved international fame after an explosion of Australian films that began in the late 1970s, a list that includes Paul Hogan, Mel Gibson, Geoffrey Rush, Russell Crowe, Jane Campion, Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. His range was remarkable, playing opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy “Sweet Revenge” to chopping off Hunter’s finger in “The Piano” to poking his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror “Event Horizon.”
In “Omen III: The Final Conflict,” he played Damien the Antichrist and he also played Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in “The Tudors.”
The actor first came to the attention of international audiences in Armstrong’s 1979 film “My Brilliant Career,” which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s “Dead Calm,” a classy thriller set at sea and co-starring the then-relatively unknown Nicole Kidman.
Neill twice co-starred with Meryl Streep, in Australian director Fred Schepisi’s “Plenty” and — again for Schepisi — in “A Cry in the Dark,” a film about the sensationalized aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback. He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the 1998 miniseries “Merlin” and another as narrator of 2017’s “Wild New Zealand.”
‘Jurassic Park’ was his best-known film
Perhaps Neill achieved his highest level of fame in “Jurassic Park” playing paleontologist Alan Grant, who is summoned to an island off Costa Rica where a theme park has been built to house herds of cloned dinosaurs. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.
His character was thoughtful and reasonable, a scientist who warned the mastermind of the theme park before the chaos: “Dinosaurs and man, two species separated by 65 million years of evolution have just been suddenly thrown back into the mix together. How can we possibly have the slightest idea what to expect?”
Grant survived the harrowing events when the creatures get loose, but didn’t return for “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II” in 1997. He came back for the third episode in 2001 and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022.
“It’s probably a little late to learn these things,” he told the Daily New of New York in 2001, “but I finally feel I’ve worked out how to be an action hero. I’m happier with Grant this time. He’s gnarly and grizzled, but he looks like he knows what he’s doing.”
Neill grew up in Northern Ireland, then New Zealand
Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, Neill emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 7. He was born Nigel Neill, but told interviewers he started to go by Sam because there were too many Nigels at his school.
His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island and he was sent to boarding school in Christchurch. After college, he took the lead in “Sleeping Dogs” in 1977, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade.
Neill’s other film roles included playing a Soviet submarine officer who memorably dreams of a home in Montana in “The Hunt for Red October” and an investigator in director John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness.”
On the small screen, Neill played the malign Chester Campbell in TV’s “Peaky Blinders” and Thomas Jefferson in the four-hour CBS miniseries, “Sally Hemings: an American Tragedy.” On Apple TV+, he was on “Invasion,” playing Oklahoma Sheriff John Bell Tyson, a man late in his career searching for his purpose. In 2024 he starred opposite Annette Bening in the Peacock series “Apples Never Fall.”
Actor beloved in New Zealand as an unassuming celebrity
The actor became known in New Zealand as a modest and unassuming person who didn’t embrace celebrity. On social media, he often posted images of his farm animals, many of them affectionately named after celebrities and friends, like Laura Dern the chicken, Kylie Minogue the duck and Helena Bonham Carter the cow.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon mourned Neill as “one of the greats” in a statement posted to social media.
“He started out when there was barely a film industry to speak of,” Luxon wrote. “For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today.”
Neill was also a vintner and under his Two Paddocks brand, he produced pinot noir and riesling wines from his winery in the Central Otago region of New Zealand’s South Island.
His memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” came out in March 2023 and he was awarded a knighthood in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to film,” a title approved by the late Queen Elizabeth II.
“I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” Neill told The Guardian in 2023, referring to his cancer diagnosis and treatment. “But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends.”
He is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
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Movie Reviews41 minutes agoMovie Review – New Year’s Absolution (2024)
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World53 minutes agoFrontières 2026: Lineup and Highlights from a Zombie Wedding to Thai Folk Horror Noir and a Half-Body Filipino Vampire
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Politics1 hour ago
Why Supreme Court Justices Are Asking for More Security
