He attended the University of Canterbury in Christchurch before transferring to the University of Victoria in Wellington, where he graduated in 1970 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. “Acting was about the only thing that I was good at in school,” he later told The Chicago Tribune.

He began work as a stage actor, performing initially with the Downstage Theater Company for 35 New Zealand dollars a week and a nightly plate of lasagna. He then traveled the country with the New Zealand Players Drama Quartet, performing Shakespeare and other great theatrical works to schoolchildren.

Seeking more stable employment, Mr. Neill joined New Zealand’s National Film Unit, a publicly owned production company, where he directed a series of documentary shorts. During this time, he appeared in “Ashes,” a 1975 short film, and as the lead in the 1977 thriller “Sleeping Dogs,” which would become New Zealand’s highest-grossing film at the time.

While promoting “Sleeping Dogs” in Australia, Mr. Neill was cast in “My Brilliant Career,” for which he was paid roughly three times his National Film Unit salary. It would be the first in a string of Australian productions for him. Mr. Neill quickly acquired an agent, quit his job in New Zealand and moved to Sydney.

Over the next years, Mr. Neill appeared in feature films in Europe and North America before making his Hollywood debut, playing the Antichrist in “Omen III: The Awakening” in 1981. He was nominated for two Emmys, for the 1998 mini-series “Merlin” and the 2017 documentary “New Zealand: Earth’s Mythical Islands,” which he narrated, and three Golden Globes, for performances in the television series “Reilly: Ace of Spies” (1983), “One Against the Wind” (1992) and “Merlin.”

He was made an Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2007, making him eligible for a knighthood. In 2009, he declined the honor, telling The Sydney Morning Herald: “All modesty aside, I find the idea of a title for myself just too grand at this time of my life.”