Jurassic Park's Sam Neill 'not afraid of dying' is he issues blood cancer update

17 October 2023 , 04:57

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Neill said the drug was working at the moment, but knows it is not a solution that can last forever (Image: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock)

Jurassic Park star Sam Neill has said he is "not afraid of dying" as he issued an update on his blood cancer battle.

Earlier this year Neill, 76, revealed how he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in, but has now been in remission for around 12 months. After chemotherapy failed to work, Neill told how he was relying on a new experimental drug which works at fighting off his non-Hodgkin blood cancer.

However despite the drug working at the moment, Neill said he knows it is not a solution that can last forever, and added that he is "prepared for" the day it stops working. He told Australian Story : "I'm not in any way frightened of dying. That doesn't worry me. It's never worried me from the beginning, but I would be annoyed.

"I'd be annoyed because there are things I still want to do. Very irritating, dying. But I'm not afraid of it". On his cancer battle, Sam said he was 'stripped of his dignity' adding: "There were times in the last year where I had to look at myself in the mirror and I wasn't a pretty sight,' he told the ABC. 'I was stripped of any kind of dignity."

Neill described how his diagnosis came after he returned to New Zealand amid Covid-19 to be closer to his family. His son Tim told Australian Story how his father had been back in New Zealand for barely an hour when a doctor phoned with the devastating news.

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Neill described how his diagnosis came after he returned to New Zealand amid Covid-19 to be closer to his family (Europa Press via Getty Images)

Sam told how he was "really in a fight for my life. And everything was a new world and a rather alarming world. I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapies which are, brutal."

His revelation came in his new book, Did I Ever Tell You This?, as he spoke about how writing his story down got him through the tough and long process of chemotherapy. Asked if his cancer diagnosis prompted him to write his book, he added: "I was going to chemotherapy and had nothing to do, I'm used to thinking with what little brain I have and going to work and suddenly I couldn't go to work.

"So I started writing. After a few months, I thought maybe there's a book in it." In his book, he opened it with: "The thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up."

He added to The Guardian recently: "I never had any intention to write a book. But as I went on and kept writing, I realised 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."

Abigail O'Leary