The 76-year-old 'Jurassic Park' star opened up to the Australian Broadcasting Company about his cancer battle.
Jurassic Park star Sam Neill has been in remission for a year now following his diagnosis of a rare form of cancer, but doctors have told him that the anti-cancer drug that has helped him in his recovery will one day stop working -- and he says he's "prepared for that."
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Company's Australia Today, the 76-year-old says facing death doesn't scare him. Not even when the intense chemotherapy sessions that caused all of his hair to fall off stopped working just three months into treating his angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.
Neill says doctors then introduced a new anti-cancer drug that he'll have to take monthly for the rest of his life. He also requires infusion every two weeks indefinitely. And while that anti-cancer drug has led to his remission, Neill says doctors told him that, at some point, the drug will stop working.
"I'm prepared for that," he tells the Australian outlet.
Neill said he thought deeply about mortality following the shocking diagnosis last year, so he decided that while dying would be "annoying" because he's got so much on his plate, he's "not remotely afraid" of death. But retirement? He says the thought of that "fills me with horror." So he stays busy.
It was back in March when The Guardian first revealed that Neill would share in his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?, that he experienced swollen glands while promoting Jurassic World Dominion back in March 2022. The outlet reported he was ultimately diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. He would go on to receive chemotherapy, which started failing just three months into treatment. This forced Neill to take a new chemotherapy drug.
"I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments," he told The Guardian. "But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends. Just pleased to be alive."
Australian Today, which published photos of Neill without his hair, reported that the veteran actor hates thinking about his battle with cancer. Not because he's scared, but because he doesn't find it interesting. So, no need to give it much thought.
"I know I've got it, but I'm not really interested in it," he says. "It's out of my control. If you can't control it, don't get into it."
And it was during chemo when Neill decided to write his memoir "because I'm not sure how long I have to live." Pretty soon, he had 50,000 words in a matter of months. And now he has a memoir full of stories to leave behind so that his four children and eight grandchildren have "a sense of me."
"I thought it would be great for them to have some of my stories," he said. "I mightn't be here in a month or two. We'll leave something for them."
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