The actor and director first worked together four decades ago, on the classic Australian film My Brilliant Career.

Now, they're both in Launceston, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the seminal movie.

"Gillian is a very important figure in Australian cinema, and she's also a very good friend - I'm really looking forward to seeing her," Neill said.

"My Brilliant Career was one of those formative Australian films, in that wave of Australian films [in the late seventies].

"It was formative in my career as well. You never have a sense of how things are going to turn out, but it was a beautiful film to make."

Gillian Armstrong and Sam Neill will be sharing their thoughts on the film at a cocktail party and Q&A, from 5.30pm - 7pm Saturday at TasTAFE's Drysdale campus.

The public can attend the event for $50, with tickets through eventbrite.

Following the party will be a red carpet screening of My Brilliant Career at Village Cinemas, at 7.30pm.

The screening could be a confronting experience for Neill: he hasn't watched the film since it first hit cinemas in 1979 - and as in often the case, the actor is not a fan of revisiting his own performances.

"I'm going to appallingly embarrassed by my own incompetence in it," he predicted.

"It was only my second film, and I probably didn't know what I was doing."

Neill also took a tour of Queen Victoria Museum's latest exhibition, Dinosaur rEvolution: Secrets of Survival while he was in town.

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The exhibition features animatronics, 3D models, close-to-life sized murals, fossil casts and interactive displays, with five dinosaurs that move and roar, and 30 of the extinct species represented overall.

Although, the industry veteran thought the dinosaurs were perhaps, "a metaphor for me as an actor".

Exhibitions coordinator Alisanne Butler described it as "old favourites with new science", due to its inclusion of dinosaurs with feathers - which scientists now believe many of the giant animals were probably sporting as they wandered the supercontinents.

It opens June 1 and runs until October 20 at the Inveresk site.