dovetailed into football season, which then
overlapped back into hockey season. And repeat.
“So, for the better part of my youth and well into
adulthood, most of my stories were told on the
pitch or the rink.” It was when he was 30 years old
however, that Neil experienced a spinal surgery
that put him out of commission for a few months,
leaving him with a lot of couch time to think and
re-evaluate his life. “The time around that surgery
had been pretty sc ary; and now I had a fair amount
of down-time to consider what the next chapter of
life might look like. What did I want to do now that
I had dodged a potentially crippling bullet, so to
speak?” Good question, and so it seems to quite
often be the case that a traumatic event causes
people to remember to live life to the fullest and reignite their dormant passions. With Neil, it was his
passion for telling stories and when an actor friend
came to town for a few auditions, and they got to
discuss the states of their lives, Neil resolved to do
whatever it took to make his dreams a reality.
And make his dreams a reality, he did.
Perhaps now it is even surreal to Neil, as he has
since starred in hit movies, done stage acting,
been the voice of video games, and is one of the
few people who can actually claim to truly love
their job. Prior to playing Dr. Farragut in Helix,
Neil played Lt. Karl Hagerman in IFC’s dark and
dangerous comedy series, Bullet in the Face and
had other TV turns in The Listener (CTV), Blue
Mountain State (Spike), Zero Hour (ABC), The
Business (IFC) and Naked Josh (Showcase). Neil
quickly realized once he started working that his
background in athletics and the years playing
sports were not wasted as some of the skills and
instincts he had developed as an athlete were
helping him as an actor. Explaining, Neil says,
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“In a specific way, my history in athletics has
instilled in me good body-awareness and a facility
of movement and physical engagement. These
things, along with a continued commitment to
health and fitness, have proven indispensable
to me.” This physicality shows through in many
of the productions he has been in such as:
Erased (Weinstein Company), Infected (SyFy),
Immortals (Relativity), Riddick (Universal), and
the blockbuster hit, X-Men: Days of Future Past
(Fox Studios).
ortunately for Neil, who says that he still
misses playing rugby terribly, since he
stopped eight years ago, his movies and
roles give him a chance to combine his love for
storytelling and sports, in a way that works. As he
admits that rug by itself does not go very well with
an acting career, saying “it is a brutal and beautiful
sport. I will be honest though: my body does not
miss Sunday mornings! I am 45 years old now and
frankly, I am fortunate to have come away from so
many years of punishment without any significant
and long-term injuries (mostly just breaking my
nose over and over). I am glad I stopped when
I did.” One such time that he was able to have
a blast in a very physical role was during a fight
scene he had with Aaron Eckhart on the film
Erased. Eckhart’s character beats Neil’s character
well and truly. Describing that day, Neil tell us,
“Well, after a few rehearsal days, Aaron and I did
the fighting ourselves. He was throwing me around
that hotel room for about 11 or 12 hours that day
and by the end my face was actually a little bruised
and battered from repeatedly bouncing off walls
and tables. Given the down and dirty ferocity of
the fight, the crazy thing is that Aaron managed to
not actually kill me… It was a fun day!” He most