Sam Neill has said that he is “not afraid of dying” after doctors informed him that treatment fighting his stage-three blood cancer will eventually stop being effective.
The Jurassic Park star was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkin blood cancer – angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma – last year and while his doctors tried chemotherapy, the treatment stopped working after three months, leaving him in a “fight for [his] life”.
Neill was switched onto a new experimental drug that requires infusions every two weeks, which has successfully put his cancer into remission for the past 12 months but it has difficult side effects.
And Neill revealed that his specialists have told him that the drug will stop working at some point, which he says he is “prepared for”.
He told ABC’s 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.”
Later adding: “I’m prepared for that [dying]. I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it.
“It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it… I started to look at my life and realised how immensely grateful I am for so much of it ... I’m in a very uncertain world at the moment.”
The Kiwi actor, who went public with his diagnosis while promoting his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This? earlier this year, was diagnosed after experiencing swollen glands during publicity for Jurassic World Dominion in March 2022.
Prior to the Sag-Aftra strike, which began in June, Neill was working on the film adaptation of Lianne Moriarty’s novel, Apples Never Fall, alongside BAFTA winner Annette Bening.
The Peaky Blinders star is also filming season two of mini-series The Twelve, which centres on a jury undergoing a murder trial.
