Sir Sam Neill “really didn’t like” living in Los Angeles.
The Jurassic Park actor - who has son Tim, 41, with Lisa Harrow, and Elena, 33, with ex-wife Noriko Watanabe - briefly stayed in California in the early days of his career but found it “boring” as people only wanted to talk about their work in the entertainment industry and he didn’t think it was a good place to raise his family.
Explaining why he didn’t want to live in Hollywood, Neill - whose home is in New Zealand, where he was raised - told The Guardian newspaper: “A number of reasons. One was, I didn’t want to bring up my children in LA. I didn’t think that would be good for them.
“And I didn’t love LA. I really didn’t like living there. We went there for a year and a half and I wasn’t happy. There was nothing but show business. No other conversations, no other interests. It bores the s*** out of me.
“That’s why my life now is half performance and half rural. I farm, I grow wine, and that keeps me sane. If I was only doing one, I’d go absolutely nuts.”