Tara Fitzgerald Honours Sam Neill With a Personal Poem After His Death

Full text

Neill’s co-star in the 1994 comedy-drama Sirens remembers a man of rare beauty, generosity and delight

By the time I met Sam

He had already assumed a kind of mythic status in our household,

playing Reilly on Ace of Spies.

My stepfather was his boss.

11 years on and I get to work with him,

Playing Norman Lindsay (wryly).

He was

Electric-minded

Some fantastic mischief lurking just around the grin

The twinkle of his eye

An astronomical scintillation

No time for Acting

Too busy Being.

Present

(Before I knew what present even was)

There for the other actor

Made it seem so simple

Really asked the question

He could conjure anything

Puckish

So blessed to have had that time

The proximity

With the hope that something

Might rub off

Yes

His softly softly take

The first tasting of

Two Paddocks

Pinot noir

On a gentle evening

Chez lui

(Another case of his generosity)

The satisfying ritual of the swirling, the sniffing, the sipping,

The glass half-full

Raised

To the life fully lived

Fine unbuttoning of stories and some

Past glories

Never boastful

Never cruel

Only

A delight at the sharing

The wit and the wine

and the

Wrapping us all in his open embrace

Us, being a shimmer of sirens,

A bouquet of sheep shearers

And an exaltation of Hugh Grants.

(To be sure, the badinage that flowed on set was an art form in itself)

I’m looking at him now

Shooting his closeup for a scene in the garden,

Where the children

Watch a fairy show

Staged by the artist’s models.

His face flooded

With imagination,

With his own wonder,

His own childlike joy.

Continue reading...