Sam Neill has been in remission for a year and has returned to acting and winemaking after being diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in early 2022.
Every two weeks, Neill gets infusions of a drug that his tumor has been responding to well – for now. He’ll keep doing this indefinitely, until the treatment inevitably stops working, Neill, 76, revealed in a 30-minute documentary released Monday for Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Australian Story program.
It’s like “going 10 rounds with a boxer, but it’s keeping me alive, and being alive is infinitely preferable to the alternative,” Neill said.
“I’m not, in any way, frightened of dying. It’s never worried me from the beginning. But I would be annoyed because there are things I still want to do,” he said. “Very irritating, dying. But I’m not afraid of it.”
In March, the “Jurassic Park” franchise star revealed in his memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” that he was fighting stage three angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. He’s been in remission for a year and keeping busy with film and TV projects as well as his New Zealand vineyard.
His son Tim Neill-Harrow said in the documentary that his father doesn’t like talking about his illness. “I’m not interested in cancer,” Sam Neill explained. “I’ve got other things on my mind, and it’s not cancer.”
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Sam Neill was in a ‘fight for my life’ undergoing chemotherapy
In March 2022, Neill discovered he had swollen glands while in Los Angeles promoting “Jurassic World Dominion.” As he had his throat scanned in Sydney, Australia, “the nurse dropped her piece of equipment and ran out of the room,” he recalled.
Soon after, Neill started “conventional chemotherapies” for a few months, describing them as “brutal.”
“There were times in the last year where I had to look at myself in the mirror, and I wasn’t a pretty sight,” Neill said. “I was stripped of any kind of dignity.”
“I was in, really, a fight for my life,” he said.
Before doctors found a treatment that was effective against Neill’s “aggressive” tumor, the actor was “just bones and skin,” his son said – “I could barely hug him.”
Sam Neill is ‘prepared’ for cancer drug to stop working
In the documentary, hematologist Dr. Orly Lavee shared that “the tumor started to outsmart the drugs before we even got through the first regimen.” So they had to find another drug.
“For Sam’s second line of treatment, I chose more novel agents, a drug which Sam responded brilliantly to very quickly,” she said.
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“That was a year ago now, and I have been in remission ever since then,” Neill added. “And I’m immensely grateful for that. (The cancer drug is) not something I can finish. I will be on this for the rest of my life.”
He added, “One doctor said to me, ‘This stuff will stop working one day, too.’ So I’m prepared for that. I’m ready for it.”
The thought of retiring fills Sam Neill with ‘horror’
Neill is best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in the “Jurassic Park” films, but has also starred in more than 100 film and TV projects, including “Peaky Blinders,” “The Tudors” and 2012’s “The Vow.” Aside from his acting career, he has also been making wine for 30 years.
“The idea of retirement fills me with horror, actually. To not be able to do the things that you love would be heartbreaking,” he said.
Recently, he’s been promoting his memoir and filmed an adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel “Apples Never Fall” as well as a new season of the mini-series “The Twelve.”
“I would have never imagined that I’d still be working,” Neill said. “But I don’t seem to be stopping.”
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