Those lively eyes, that grin, the face his fellow New Zealanders had grown up with, changing as their own had changed with the passing of the decades. Under the photograph someone had scrawled in black felt-pen: “We’ll miss you, Sam.”
“Yeah,” Laurie sighed, “we will.”
Taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders he made his way to the bar.
“Your handiwork, Hannah?”, Laurie inquired of the young woman behind the bar, indicating the noticeboard with a twitch of his head.
“Had to acknowledge his passing somehow, Laurie. I was surprised how hard the news hit me, how important it now seemed, even to someone my age, that Sam Neill had been in the world. I knew that I was going to miss him — miss what he represented. I was pretty confident my customers would feel the same way.”
“As am I, Hannah. It was a nice touch.”
“Les is in the corner, Laurie.” Hannah inclined her head towards the corner table by the window. “There’s a pint already poured for you.”
“Bloody shame about Sam Neill, eh?” Les had observed his friend’s brief vigil in front of the noticeboard.
“Yes, it is. And a surprise, too,” Les replied. “He appeared to have beaten his cancer, was still working, had more projects in the pipeline. He was only 78.”
“Yes, that’s right. I was thinking about that. Being born in 1947 qualified Sam as a Baby Boomer — one of the first. It struck me that, by virtue of growing up in those golden post-war years, Sam Neill was moulded and shaped by the very best New Zealand had to offer. That extraordinary ease, the effortless warmth he was able to project to his audiences; it was all so, well, so us.”
“Don’t get too carried away, Les. Neill was just as good at projecting our famous Kiwi reserve: the New Zealand male’s brooding taciturnity; all that frustration and fury simmering just beneath the surface. You and I are old enough to remember Sleeping Dogs, Les. Not too much ease and warmth in the character Neill played for Roger Donaldson.”
“Fair point, Laurie, fair point. Sam could play the villain, too. He had a way of mocking his victims with his eyes: smiling coyly at the killing joke that only he knew was coming. Thinking about it, he had mastered all of Bill Pearson’s Fretful Sleepers’ stereotypes. He got the dark side of New Zealand as well as the light.”
“Listen to us!” Laurie laughed, “Gushing on like a couple of star-struck schoolgirls!”
Les stared into his beer.
“Maybe, Laurie, maybe. But answer me this: Is there any other New Zealand actor currently on our screens — or the world’s — who is capable of evoking anything remotely resembling the affection and admiration which Sam Neill inspired? More to the point, is there anyone to equal Sam Neill in representing to the world the qualities, the values, that New Zealanders most admire and cherish?”
“Well, let’s see. There’s Russell Crowe, Temuera Morrison, Taika Waititi. There’s Lorde.”
“Yeah, but Crowe’s as much an Aussie as he is a Kiwi. The Aussies certainly think so. And is Morrison’s rage, Waititi’s scorn, really what we want the world to take from us? And Lorde? She had one good song. Sam Neill had a lot more than one good movie.”
“Even if one of the best, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, was directed by Taika Waititi.”
Les tipped his glass, conceding the point.
“Let’s face it, Les,” Laurie continued, “New Zealanders loved Sam Neill because he never embarrassed us, never made us cringe. He could hold his own against the Yanks and the Brits and the Australians. And in spite of being an ageing, self-deprecating, Scots-Irish bloke from the South Island, Kiwis of every race, colour and creed adored him.”
“And he was a good leftie!” Les crowed.
“Yes, well, none of us are perfect.”
• Chris Trotter is an Auckland writer and commentator.
