The only good place left on social media is Sam Neill’s farm, writes Alex Casey.

What’s your favourite Sam Neill movie? Mine is the one where he wears the oilskin and sings a stirring rendition of ‘Hallelujah’ to a group of disinterested cows. You might not have seen it yet because it is only one minute and 42 seconds long and it just came out yesterday. Before that? Probably the one where he played a pair of passive aggressive Australian bumblebees named Derek and Paul. Then probably Jurassic Park. 

The beloved New Zealand actor is home for the summer, and posting frequently delightful Instagram Reels from his Central Otago menagerie of friendly farmyard animals, insect life, and lush lavender bushes. “Do you want to be a bumblebee with me,” he asks the camera in one particularly perfect reel, as gentle piano and birdsong swells in the background. There is no time to answer (yes, obviously). “Of course you do – let’s go bumble around the lavender.”

For the next 45 seconds, oh the places you’ll bumble. Guiding his phone languidly through the dense purple bush, the real bumblebees flit past and the flowers quiver in their close-up. Any regular hack content creator would have captioned such a clip: “POV: You are a bumblebee,” but not our Neill. “WANT TO BUMBLEBEE ? With me ? In the lavender ( harvesting soon for lavender oil . ) Ok . LET’S BEE BUMBLING BEES COME ON …”

Neill-heads know that this is a textbook example of the star’s writing style, crackling with personality in the face of bland ironic internet-speak. Take this caption on a photo of a guilty rooster: “WALK OF SHAME . The Rooster , #MichaelFassbender, turned up this morning to apologise for partying out all night . ” On a platform primarily concerned with perfection, there’s truly nothing like a couple of gaping fullstops and errant celebrity hashtags to take the edge off.

I should also mention at this point that all of Sam Neill’s animals are named after celebrities, including his Kunekune pig Amy Adams. Forget Nightbitch, because Adams unleashed her most visceral role just one week ago in a Reel entitled HOW TO EAT ICE CREAM. Caption: “Found a couple of well-past use-by-date tubs in my freezer, so did the right thing by young AMY ADAMS and her Mum Bryan, who knew just how to make the most of it. WAIT TO THE END”

The accompanying clip is nothing short of joyous, with Amy Adams hiffing her whole happy snout into Tip Top’s finest and slurping it up gleefully, while ‘You Are So Beautiful’ provides the perfect soundtrack. Neill can be heard goading her on in the background to look at the camera. When she finally does, the video freeze-frames on her blissed-out beaming face. “Going to be a tad messy if he’s lactose intolerant,” one commenter wrote.

“That pig couldn’t even spell ‘lactose intolerant’,” Neill replied.

With Country Calendar still one of the highest rating shows in the country, and Neill clearly enjoying downtime between projects, this is the perfect moment to give the man his own lifestyle show. We’re all trying to “touch grass” as the world burns, but Sam Neill is actually walking the walk. He’s burying his face in the grass and inhaling deeply. He’s naming the grass after his favourite actors. He’s feeding the grass expired Tip Top while playing ‘You Are So Beautiful’. 

And while most lifestyle shows won’t show the failures, Neill happily shares his shortcomings. Whether it is not knowing how to drive a tractor, calling out his snoozy worker bees, or sharing his unscientific lavender harvesting method, Neill keeps it about as real as Fassbender waddling home after a night out. He also knows that, through all the horrors that flood our eyeballs everyday, we all need to see a pig eat a tub of ice-cream every now and again.

“The world is somewhat dark right now,” he wrote as Amy Adams polished off her 2L, “but there is still beauty to be found.”