Sam Neill has revealed he’s being treated for stage-three blood cancer.
The 75-year-old actor opens up about his journey with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in his upcoming memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?”
In an interview with the Guardian ahead of the memoir’s release, Neill shared that he was diagnosed after noticing swollen glands while promoting Jurassic World Dominion.
He then started writing stories about his life while receiving chemotherapy.
“I found myself with nothing to do,” he recalled. “And I’m used to working. I love working,” he told The Guardian.Â
“I love going to work. I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all these things.”
“And suddenly I was deprived of that. And I thought, ‘what am I going to do?'”
“I never had any intention to write a book.”
“But as I went on and kept writing, I realized it was actually sort of giving me a reason to live and I would go to bed thinking, ‘I’ll write about that tomorrow… that will entertain me.'”
“And so it was a lifesaver really, because I couldn’t have gone through that with nothing to do, you know.”
Neill is now cancer-free but expects to be on chemotherapy medication for the rest of his life.
“I’m not afraid to die,” he said, “but it would annoy me.”
“Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature.”
“And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. “But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”
Neill will next be seen on the MGM+ original movie, The Portable Door, which will premiere on April 7, 2023.
The actor has also joined the cast of Peacock’s limited series, Apples Never Fall.
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.
