Sam Neill, veteran actor, passed away at 78 on July 13. Most fans know him for playing Dr Alan Grant, the palaeontologist who made Jurassic Park a defining film of the 1990s. But long before the dinosaurs, Neill built a career that went in a very different direction. On British television, he found a second signature role: Chief Inspector Chester Campbell, the ruthless antagonist who terrorised the Shelby family through the first two seasons of Peaky Blinders. It’s a performance many consider one of the finest villain turns of his career, precisely because it went against everything audiences expected of him.
