{"id":2500111,"date":"2026-07-13T13:16:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2500111"},"modified":"2026-07-13T13:16:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:16:00","slug":"sam-neills-dead-calm-co-star-nicole-kidman-pays-tribute-to-friend-for-life-after-his-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/sam-neills-dead-calm-co-star-nicole-kidman-pays-tribute-to-friend-for-life-after-his-passing\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Neill&#8217;s &#8216;Dead Calm&#8217; co-star Nicole Kidman pays tribute to &#8216;friend for life&#8217; after his passing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Nicole Kidman paid tribute to her \u201cfriend for life\u201d Sam Neill after his <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pagesix.com\/2026\/07\/13\/celebrity-news\/sam-neill-dead-at-78-starred-in-jurassic-park\/\">sudden death<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was one of the greats\u2026 A joy to be around. We met when I was just 18, and he took me under his wing and we stayed friends for life,\u201d the actress <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/culture\/movies\/sam-neill-dead-reports-20260713-p60ey2.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told the Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> in a statement Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was charming, kind, funny, and intelligent. He will be greatly missed, and my heart goes out to his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><button class=\"button button--modal-trigger\" aria-label=\"Open the image in a modal.\" data-modal-image=\"9047955\"><br \/>\n\t<svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"icon-plus\" fill=\"#fff\" viewbox=\"0 0 1033 1000\" width=\"1em\" height=\"1em\"><path d=\"M380 364V0h273v355h380v290H653v355H380V645H0V355h380v9z\"\/><\/svg><br \/>\n<\/button><br \/>\n<figcaption>Nicole Kidman paid tribute to her \u201cfriend for life\u201d and \u201cDead Calm\u201d co-star Sam Neill after his sudden death. (The two are pictured here in the 1989 film.) <span class=\"credit\">Kennedy Miller\/Kobal \/ Shutterstock<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The duo, notably, starred together in the 1989 thriller \u201cDead Calm,\u201d in which they played a married couple.<\/p>\n<p>It was Kidman\u2019s breakout performance that catapulted her to international stardom and launched her Hollywood career.<\/p>\n<p>30 years after their performance in the film, Kidman and Neill reunited at a \u201cBig Little Lies\u201d panel in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The two were joined by Laura Dern who was Neill\u2019s \u201cJurassic Park\u201d co-star and Kidman\u2019s co-star in the HBO show. <\/p>\n<p>Neill\u2019s family announced his death on Monday via Instagram. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is with immense sadness that the wh\u0101nau [family] of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia,\u201d the late actor\u2019s loved ones\u00a0penned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cThe loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His family went on to \u201cexpress their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent\u2019s Private Hospital for their incredible care.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They concluded, \u201cMore details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Neill\u2019s passing comes just two months after he announced he was cancer-free following his battle with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma \u2013 a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He had been forced to seek an alternative when doctors told him chemotherapy stopped working, so he took part in a trial for CAR T-cell therapy \u2013 a form of immunotherapy that trains T-cells to destroy cancer cells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that\u2019s an extraordinary thing,\u201d he told Australia\u2019s 7News\u00a0in April, reflecting on the success of his trial.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m very, very excited that this can happen. It\u2019s time I did another movie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The beloved actor previously\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2023\/10\/17\/sam-neill-says-hes-not-remotely-afraid-of-death-amid-cancer-battle-out-of-my-control\/\">said he was \u201cnot remotely afraid\u201d of dying<\/a>\u00a0as he battled cancer.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Story developing\u2026<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source pagesix.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nicole Kidman paid tribute to her \u201cfriend for life\u201d Sam Neill after his sudden death. \u201cHe was one of the greats\u2026 A joy to be around. We met when I was just 18, and he took me under his wing and we stayed friends for life,\u201d the actress told the Sydney Morning Herald in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2500112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[22062,106601,24003,21912,36290,366206],"class_list":["post-2500111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-celebrity-friendships","tag-celebrity-news","tag-movies","tag-nicole-kidman","tag-sam-neill"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Sam-Neills-Dead-Calm-co-star-Nicole-Kidman-pays-tribute-to.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2500111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2500113,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500111\/revisions\/2500113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2500112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2500111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2500111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2500111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}