Sam Neill and Frances O’Connor tease on-screen romance as they walk The Twelve red carpet in Sydney

Sam Neill plans to name a new celebrity farm animal after his The Twelve co-star (although the calf isn’t a “beauty” like her) as the pair walk the premiere red carpet in Sydney.

The circumstances of the central murder plot in The Twelve season two “are very murky,” according to Hollywood star Sam Neill.

“There’s a lot of suspicious characters,” he told The Daily Telegraph before walking the Sydney red carpet for the award-winning court drama’s second season at the Ritz Cinema on Monday night.

“I honestly thought I was just at the Logies to fill up the numbers,” Neill said of his 2023 Most Popular Actor win for the series.

“Seriously. I thought ‘this is absurd’. My name went up and I wasn’t even looking up at the stage. I genuinely thought there’d been a mistake.”

The new season was filmed on location in the rural township of York in West Australia which Neill said “makes things feel more claustrophobic,” as he reprises his role of leading criminal barrister Brett Colby.

“There’s something about little towns that make things more relatable,” the Jurassic Park star said.

British-Australian actor Frances O’Connor joins the cast as defence lawyer Meredith Nelson-Moore, who is representing one of two ex-lovers who stand accused of murdering a local landowner.

Of course, discovering whodunit, isn’t the only source of intrigue in The Twelve which Neill says “is distinct from other crime shows because it’s very much more character driven.”

“We are suspicious, but not to with the story, just generally,” O’Connor joked.

“Would you call it a romantic entanglement?” Neill asked his co-star.

“An entanglement definitely,” she said. “Work buddies.”

“With benefits?” Neill quipped. “I don’t think that’s right anymore, we can’t say that. That’s terrible.”

Frances O'Connor and Sam Neill in Sydney ahead of the red carpet for The Twelve. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

“We start off working on the same side,” she clarified.

“I can’t get out of bed, that’s how much we’re on the same side,” Neill added, teasing the romantic storyline that will play out between them on screen.

While back home on his vineyard in New Zealand’s picturesque Central Otago, Neill has named his menagerie of livestock after his castmates.

There’s a chicken named Meryl Streep, his co-star in the 1988 movie Evil Angels. A cow called Helena Bonham Carter (who first worked with him on Merlin), and a strutting rooster named Michael Fassbender. There could soon be a Frances, too.

Sam Neill on the red carpet. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Co-stars Frances O'Connor and Sam Neill. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Frances O'Connor at The Twelve premiere. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

“We’ve got two brand new calves, but you might want to look them over to see which one is the most attractive,” Neill told her. “Because they’re not all beauties like you.”

The 76-year-old actor, who has starred in more than 150 film and TV credits, has no plans to slow down.

Diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T cell lymphoma in March 2022 after noticing swollen glands in his neck while doing the publicity tour for Jurassic World Dominion, the Kiwi star was still undergoing gruelling treatment while filming The Twelve.

However, he will fly out of Sydney to Canada early Tuesday morning to begin work on a new project.

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