Sam Neill Had the Perfect Spy Résumé and Screen Test—but Never Wanted to Be James Bond

Sir Sam Neill, the acclaimed New Zealand actor whose remarkable career stretched from arthouse classics to Hollywood blockbusters, has died at the age of 78.

Although millions will remember him as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, and others for performances in films including Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, The Piano and Event Horizon, James Bond fans have always wondered about another role: what if Sam Neill had become 007?

It’s an easy question to ask when watching his now-famous Bond screen test. But the real answer begins three years earlier with another spy.

The Spy Who Put Neill on Bond’s Radar

In 1983, Neill starred as the legendary intelligence operative Sidney Reilly in ITV’s ambitious 12-part drama Reilly: Ace of Spies, with episodes directed by future Bond director Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale).

Based on Robin Bruce Lockhart’s biography, the series followed the Russian-born adventurer whose exploits spanned the final years of Imperial Russia, the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution.

It was an enormously demanding role.

Neill wasn’t simply asked to play a secret agent. He portrayed a master manipulator who constantly reinvented himself, moving effortlessly between aristocrats, politicians, industrialists and military leaders while concealing his true motives. His Reilly was cultured, multilingual and impeccably dressed, but beneath the charm lay a calculating intelligence that made him dangerous.

Unlike many television spies of the period, Reilly relied less on violence than psychology. Neill suggested a man who won battles before anyone realised they had begun—observing, listening and adapting himself to every situation. Every smile appeared to conceal another calculation.

The performance earned Neill international acclaim and a Golden Globe nomination, but it also achieved something else.

It convinced Eon Productions they might have found Roger Moore’s successor as James Bond.

From Sidney Reilly to James Bond

Following Moore’s retirement after A View to a Kill, producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and his team began searching for the next James Bond.

Former Bond casting director Debbie McWilliams was particularly impressed by Neill’s work in Reilly: Ace of Spies. “I think Sam stood a very good chance in those early days,” she later said. Co-producer Michael G. Wilson and director John Glen also became enthusiastic supporters, leading to Neill being invited to London for one of the most famous Bond auditions never to result in the role.

For the screen test, Neill was paired with Fiona Fullerton, who had only recently appeared opposite Roger Moore as Soviet agent Pola Ivanova in Moore’s swansong performance as Bond, A View to a Kill. For Neill’s audition, however, she played Tatiana Romanova as the pair recreated the famous bedroom sequence from From Russia with Love.

The footage survives today, and it remains fascinating.

Rather than imitate Sean Connery’s swagger or Roger Moore’s raised eyebrow, Neill created a Bond that felt intelligent, restrained but with the requisite sophistication, charm and authority. 

Watching it today, it is impossible not to notice how much Sidney Reilly still lingers in the performance.

The same watchfulness. The same elegance. The same impression that Bond was constantly thinking several moves ahead.

Many fans have since argued that Neill anticipated the more grounded direction Timothy Dalton would ultimately bring to The Living Daylights.

Why Sam Neill Never Became 007

Despite impressing much of the Bond team, one opinion mattered more than any other.

Cubby Broccoli simply wasn’t convinced.

Timothy Dalton eventually secured the role after Pierce Brosnan became unavailable because of his Remington Steele contract, leaving Neill as one of the franchise’s great “what ifs.” Yet perhaps the greatest surprise is that Neill himself never regarded Bond as a missed opportunity.

Looking back years later, he admitted he had never truly felt comfortable during the screen test.

“I was never really comfortable doing it,” he later recalled. “It just didn’t feel like me.”

Neill also remembered the filmmakers encouraging him to appear more interested in his leading lady during the audition, a direction he found strangely unnatural.

More revealing still was his attitude towards the role itself.

He explained that his agent had strongly encouraged him to test for Bond, but he personally never wanted the part. While acting James Bond sounded enjoyable enough, the expectation of permanently being James Bond held little appeal. He later described the role as something of a “poison chalice,” capable of defining—and limiting—an actor for the rest of his career.

There was another reason he felt relieved.

Pierce Brosnan, one of his close friends, desperately wanted the role. Neill admitted he quietly hoped Brosnan would eventually become Bond instead.

Had Cubby Broccoli seen things differently, Bond history might have taken a very different course.

Instead, Sam Neill went on to build one of the most respected careers of his generation without ever needing a licence to kill.