Did I Ever Tell You This?

Brought to you by Penguin.In this unexpected memoir, written in a creative burst of just a few months in 2022, Sam Neill tells the story of how he became one of the world's most celebrated actors, who has worked with everyone from Meryl Streep to Isabel Adjani, from Jeff Goldblum to Sean Connery, from Steven Spielberg to Jane Campion.By his own account, his career has been a series of unpredictable turns of fortune. Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, he emigrated to New Zealand at the age of seven. His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island, but young Sam was sent away to boarding school in Christchurch, where he was hopeless at sports and discovered he enjoyed acting.But how did you become an actor in New Zealand in the 1960 and 1970s where there was no film industry? After university he made documentary films while also appearing in occasional amateur productions of Shakespeare. In 1977 he took the lead in Sleeping Dogs, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade, a project that led to a major role in Gillian Armstrong's celebrated My Brilliant Career.And after that Sam Neill found his way, sometimes by accident, into his own brilliant career. He has worked around the world, an actor who has moved effortlessly from blockbuster to art house to TV, from Dr Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park movies to The Piano and Peaky Blinders.Did I Ever Tell You This? is a joy to read, a marvellous and often very funny book, the work of a natural storyteller who is a superb observer of other people, and who writes with love and warmth about his family. It is also his account of his life outside film, especially in Central Otago where he established Two Paddocks, his vineyard famous for its pinot noir.(c)2023 Sam Neill (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Brought to you by Penguin.In this unexpected memoir, written in a creative burst of just a few months in 2022, Sam Neill tells the story of how he became one of the world's most celebrated actors, who has worked with everyone from Meryl Streep to Isabel Adjani, from Jeff Goldblum to Sean Connery, from Steven Spielberg to Jane Campion.By his own account, his career has been a series of unpredictable turns of fortune. Born in 1947 in Northern Ireland, he emigrated to New Zealand at the age of seven. His family settled in Dunedin on the South Island, but young Sam was sent away to boarding school in Christchurch, where he was hopeless at sports and discovered he enjoyed acting.But how did you become an actor in New Zealand in the 1960 and 1970s where there was no film industry? After university he made documentary films while also appearing in occasional amateur productions of Shakespeare. In 1977 he took the lead in Sleeping Dogs, the first feature made in New Zealand in more than a decade, a project that led to a major role in Gillian Armstrong's celebrated My Brilliant Career.And after that Sam Neill found his way, sometimes by accident, into his own brilliant career. He has worked around the world, an actor who has moved effortlessly from blockbuster to art house to TV, from Dr Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park movies to The Piano and Peaky Blinders.Did I Ever Tell You This? is a joy to read, a marvellous and often very funny book, the work of a natural storyteller who is a superb observer of other people, and who writes with love and warmth about his family. It is also his account of his life outside film, especially in Central Otago where he established Two Paddocks, his vineyard famous for its pinot noir.(c)2023 Sam Neill (P)2023 Penguin Audio

THE HEARTWARMING, LIFE-AFFIRMING MEMOIR FROM THE MUCH-LOVED FILM ICON WHOSE LEGACY WILL LIVE ON ‘Just wonderful’ MERYL STREEP ‘Sam Neill is a legend’ LAURA DERN ‘Fabulously entertaining, insanely readable’ STEPHEN FRY ‘A real treat. Fantastic’ GRAHAM NORTON ‘Really, really, really funny . . . cracking stories ’ LORRAINE KELLY ‘A transparently lovely man, with a life hectically well lived’ Mail on Sunday Dead Calm The Hunt for Red October The Piano Jurassic Park Through an incredible, iconic life and career, Sam Neill’s name has been a hallmark of quality. From enduring blockbusters to arthouse and cult classics, his work brought him all over the world, working with Hollywood’s greats. Written just two years before his death, Neill's revelatory memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? invites us in, sharing stories from an extraordinary life with heaps of charm, honesty and a good-humoured appreciation for the absurd. ‘Just wonderful, so funny and charming. Sam Neill's lively, lovely book made me laugh out loud’ MERYL STREEP ‘Sam Neill is a legend, and in this magnificent book he shares his stories of family, friends and film’ LAURA DERN ‘Really, really, really funny. There are some cracking stories’ LORRAINE KELLY ‘I love this book. A real treat. Fantastic’ GRAHAM NORTON

THE HEARTWARMING, LIFE-AFFIRMING MEMOIR FROM THE MUCH-LOVED FILM ICON WHOSE LEGACY WILL LIVE ON ‘Just wonderful’ MERYL STREEP ‘Sam Neill is a legend’ LAURA DERN ‘Fabulously entertaining, insanely readable’ STEPHEN FRY ‘A real treat. Fantastic’ GRAHAM NORTON ‘Really, really, really funny . . . cracking stories ’ LORRAINE KELLY ‘A transparently lovely man, with a life hectically well lived’ Mail on Sunday Dead Calm The Hunt for Red October The Piano Jurassic Park Through an incredible, iconic life and career, Sam Neill’s name has been a hallmark of quality. From enduring blockbusters to arthouse and cult classics, his work brought him all over the world, working with Hollywood’s greats. Written just two years before his death, Neill's revelatory memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? invites us in, sharing stories from an extraordinary life with heaps of charm, honesty and a good-humoured appreciation for the absurd. ‘Just wonderful, so funny and charming. Sam Neill's lively, lovely book made me laugh out loud’ MERYL STREEP ‘Sam Neill is a legend, and in this magnificent book he shares his stories of family, friends and film’ LAURA DERN ‘Really, really, really funny. There are some cracking stories’ LORRAINE KELLY ‘I love this book. A real treat. Fantastic’ GRAHAM NORTON