Two months after announcing that he had beaten cancer: “We are devastated to learn that Sam Neill has died”, the Peaky Blinders team wrote on Instagram, just hours after the news broke.
The New Zealand actor, who brought the fearsome Inspector Chester Campbell to life in the first two seasons of the series, died on Monday, July 13, 2026, in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 78.
His family confirmed it in a statement that left everyone with more questions than answers: the death was “sudden and unexpected”, and they clarified that Neill no longer had cancer. Just in April, he had announced that he was in remission, following experimental CAR-T cell treatment for the lymphoma he was diagnosed with in 2022.
He was one of the key forces that helped Peaky Blinders take off”, the series team acknowledged, describing his character as “despicable, petty, manipulative, but also charismatic, vulnerable and funny”.
Actors such as Joe Cole and Finn Cole also paid tribute to him, while Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, expressed his condolences.
Post from the producers of Peaky Blinders: