Tara Fitzgerald, who co-starred with Sam Neill in the 1994 comedy-drama Sirens, has penned a heartfelt poem celebrating the actor's rare beauty, generosity, and magnetic presence. In the poem, she recalls Neill's mythic status in her household before they worked together, describing him as 'electric-minded' with 'some fantastic mischief lurking just around the grin.'
A mythic presence before meeting
Fitzgerald writes that by the time she met Neill, he had already assumed a kind of mythic status in her household, playing Reilly on Ace of Spies. Her stepfather was his boss. Eleven years later, she got to work with him, playing Norman Lindsay, a role Neill performed wryly. She notes that Neill had 'no time for acting, too busy being,' and was present for the other actor, making it seem simple.
Generosity and ritual
The poem highlights Neill's generosity, including the ritual of tasting Two Paddocks Pinot noir on a gentle evening at his home. Fitzgerald describes the 'satisfying ritual of the swirling, the sniffing, the sipping,' with the glass half-full raised to the life fully lived. She recalls 'fine unbuttoning of stories and some past glories,' never boastful, never cruel, only delight in sharing.
On set camaraderie
Fitzgerald remembers the 'shimmer of sirens, a bouquet of sheep shearers, and an exaltation of Hugh Grants' on set, with badinage flowing as an art form. She describes watching Neill shoot a closeup for a garden scene where children watch a fairy show staged by the artist's models. His face was flooded with imagination, wonder, and childlike joy.
A lasting impression
The poem concludes with Neill walking ahead through the weeping grass towards the house with the light on, with the cast following in his wake. Fitzgerald quotes Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to capture Neill's playful spirit: 'Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, a hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire; and neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire at every turn.'
