Julian Sands spoke of finding human remains hiking in last interviews

Tragic British actor Julian Sands eerily spoke of finding human remains while hiking in one of his final interviews just months before he died in mountains in California

• The British actor’s death was confirmed last week after his body was found 

Julian Sands opened up about finding human remains during his ambitious climbs around the world’s peaks – just months before his own death in the southern California mountains.

The British actor’s death was confirmed last week after his body was found in the wilderness in Mount Baldy area of the San Gabriel mountains.

The 65-year-old had been missing for more than five months after he failed to return from a hike in January.

It has now emerged that during one of Mr Sand’s final interviews with the Radio Times, he had eerily foreshadowed his own death.

He told the magazine: ‘I’ve found spooky things on mountains, when you know you’re in a place where many people have lost their lives, whether it be on the Eiger or in the Andes.

Julian Sands opened up about finding human remains during his mountain climbs around the world – just months before his own death in the southern California mountains

Sands pictured sitting on a peak of the Weisshorn mountain in the Swiss Alps in September 2022

Last week, San Bernardino confirmed that human remains were discovered in the Mount Baldy area

‘You may be confronted with human remains and that can be chilling. It’s not necessarily supernatural, it’s possibly all too natural – what I would call hypernatural.

‘You’re in the presence of big nature and big nature is revealing itself in all its power. It can take us over a threshold of hypersensitivity into a realm of natural forces.’

Month long searches by local authorities to find the actor had been unsuccessful with poor weather conditions impacting efforts since March.

Eight separate search missions had been conducted by San Bernardino County Sheriff’s department, with the most recent search on June 17 including more than 80 volunteers, staff and deputies. But they could not find any trace of the actor.

His remains were found by civilian hikers last month.

Best-known for his breakout role in the 1985 romantic period drama A Room With A View, in which he starred alongside Helena Bonham Carter, Sands later moved to the horror genre, with appearances in films including Gothic, Warlock and Arachnophobia.

The actor was also a keen climber and described the activity as ‘solace and a sort of existentialist self-negation, but equally a self-affirmation’.

The snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains, with Mount Baldy the highest peak at the left, as seen from Chinatown near downtown Los Angeles

A helicopter joins the search of Mr Sands in San Bernardino County

Sands, who is known for his roles in Oscar-nominated films including 1985’s A Room With A View, was reported missing by his family on January 13 after disappearing during a trek in the Mount Baldy area of California’s San Gabriel Mountains

‘If you can deal with dangerous mountains, you can certainly deal with life as an actor – the two are quite complementary,’ he added.

In the interview, Mr Sands dismissed the suggestion that he was too old to climb but said that friends who used to join him had stopped in part due to age. He also noted that climate change had made certain rock faces more unstable.

Mr Sands said: ‘If you don’t really have the desire, the focus for climbing a route, if you’re not absolutely committed, it becomes much more dangerous and it’s a much more deflating experience.

‘Finding folk whose company I enjoy in such stressful and intimate conditions is not easy.

‘The thing about climbing is, you’re always making plans and looking at routes – maybe you end up getting to five per cent of all the things you plan to do.’

Mr Sands was considered an experienced and competent mountaineer by his friends, with his hiking partner and fellow actor Kevin Ryan previously said he had been ‘the most advanced hiker I know’.

Mount Baldy towers above Los Angeles and is approximately 10,064 feet high.

A map of the area in which Julian Sands, 65, was reported missing 

Search crews had worked  tirelessly to locate the famous actor. Their last search mission included over 80 search and rescue volunteers, deputies and staff

The mountain has been described by skilled hikers as one of one of the deadliest mountains in the United States and has been reported as one of the worst records for death and injury in the US, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Since 2020, there have been more than 100 searches for missing hikers on Mount Baldy, with six confirmed deaths, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Sands was born in 1958 in Yorkshire, northern England, to mother Brenda who raised him and his four brothers alone following her divorce.

He was privately educated at Lord Wandsworth College, a boarding school in the Hampshire countryside, before making the leap into acting.

Sands initially landed minor roles, starring alongside Anthony Hopkins in the 1983 TV film A Married Man, and appearing in Privates on Parade, about a military entertainment group in Malaysia in the late 1940s.

His first major production was 1984’s The Killing Fields, the acclaimed historical drama about the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Sands starred as journalist Jon Swain in the triple-Oscar winning film.

But it was his turn the following year in the adaptation of the classic E.M. Forster novel A Room With A View that propelled Sands to stardom.

Source: Read Full Article