Jane Campion remembered her final visit with Sam Neill in Peaky Blinders terms only insofar as it was a last, private scene in St Vincent’s in Sydney. She said she found him sketching in hospital, and their goodbye ended with a kiss.
Campion said she brought him a little watercolour set from the Macquarie art school shop, and that he was thrilled to crack out a few dreamy sketches.
She added: Our goodbye was a kiss, followed by him thanking me for coming by, for taking the trouble.
It is a plain detail, but the kind that fixes the last in-person exchange between two collaborators who first crossed paths during pre-production on The Piano.
Macquarie shop to hospital bed
The visit carried a small act of care into a medical setting. Campion said she took the set from the Macquarie art school shop, gave him something to work with, and found him following the Split Enz reunion concert on audio from his bed while they talked.
That sequence matters because it shows the hospital room was not reduced to silence or waiting. He was still making marks, still following music, still engaged enough to sketch when Campion arrived with something practical instead of ceremonial.
One summer in Queenstown
Campion also recalled seeing Neill at the beginning of the year with Heather and Griz, then staying the night at his beautiful winery. She said that when she saw him then, I was struck by a gentleness and peacefulness, a grace that was all about him.
She also said that at that point he was cancer-free and could imagine new chapters.
That makes the later hospital return at St Vincent’s in Sydney more abrupt. A person described as ready for new chapters was suddenly back in hospital only a few months later, and Campion’s memory preserves the gap between those two states without trying to soften it.
Peace, love, and the last goodbye
Campion said, He was radiating peace, beaming love.
She also called him A true gentleman
in her tributes, which fits the tone of the hospital account more than any grand retrospective could. The account is not about a public farewell; it is about one final visit, one shared joke of endurance, and one last thank-you.
For readers following Neill’s final months, the sharpest unresolved point is the medical one: what illness or complication sent him back into St Vincent’s after he had been described as cancer-free? Campion’s remembrance gives the last human contact clearly enough. It leaves the clinical explanation offstage, where it belongs until it is known.
