Sam Neill is a delightful, gentle soul who makes the proper use of social media: gifting us with videos of his encounters with pigs, sheep, ducks, chickens, and occasionally his grandkids. The Kiwi actor is probably best known for the Jurassic Park franchise, but personally I think some of his best performances are roles where he played opposite dynamic female leads: with Judy Davis in My Brilliant Career, Meryl Streep in A Cry in the Dark, Nicole Kidman in (her breakout film) Dead Calm. For his 1997 film Event Horizon, Sam quietly had the costume department replace the Union Jack on the Australian flag of his army uniform with the Aboriginal flag, believing that that’s how the flag will look in 2047, the year the film was set.
He’s a generous spirit, both in acting and his online profile. Which is why he scared the ever-loving-sh*t out of us when he announced he had a very rare type of blood cancer, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. Thankfully, he’s been in remission for a full year now, and recently did an interview with an Australian news outlet about his health and how the diagnosis led him to write his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This?. As reported by People:
“I know I’ve got it [cancer], but I’m not really interested in it,” he told the outlet. “It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”
After his diagnosis, Neill went through three months of chemotherapy before treatment stopped working and his tumor continued to grow. He then switched to a rare anti-cancer drug, which was successful.
Neill has now been in remission for 12 months. He requires infusions every two weeks, indefinitely. He admitted that the few days following treatment are “very grim and depressing,” leaving him feeling like he’s “gone 10 rounds with a boxer.”
“But it’s keeping me alive,” he said.
Neill recalled learning of his diagnosis after promoting Jurassic World Dominion. At the time, he told his longtime friend and fellow actor Bryan Brown that he had lumps on his neck. Brown told him that he might’ve gotten COVID-19 while traveling so Neill decided to get a blood test done.
“A day or two later he rang me, and he said, ‘I’ve got cancer.’ And that was the start of it,” Brown told the outlet. “He wasn’t hysterical or anything like that. He dealt with it pretty well just straight on, ‘this is what I’ve got to deal with now. Let’s get on with it.’”
Neill said his diagnosis made him realize “how immensely grateful” he is for his life.
“I started to think I better write some of this down because I’m not sure how long I have to live,” he added. “I was running against the clock.”
Neill decided to write vignettes from his life while receiving chemotherapy, which led to his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?. He wrote the memoir in hopes of leaving his family “a sense of me.”
“I had some very lonely times last year,” he admitted. “I thought it would be great for them to have some of my stories. I mightn’t be here in a month or two. We’ll leave something for them.”
As of now, Neill said he’s “prepared” for cancer treatments to stop working one day, but he’s “not remotely afraid” of death. Instead, it’s retirement that “fills me with horror.”
He explained that dying would simply be “annoying” because he’s got so much more he wants to do. Neill told the outlet that “the cancer thing” has just made him more focused on making the most of his time, noting that he’s “so pleased to be awake” every morning.
I think when Sam says he’s “not interested” in his cancer, or that dying would be “annoying,” we’re really getting a heavy dose of British/Australian/New Zealand temperament. It feels like understatement, stiff-upper lip, self-deprecation all pushed to the nth degree. And I think a big part of it is also just very specific to Sam’s calm, Zen nature. This attitude is his choice and is appropriate for him. Other patients will be very involved in research and therapies for their illness and that approach will be right for them. The twice-monthly infusions sound absolutely brutal. For someone who sounds at peace with his death, he’s sure enduring a lot of pain to keep living.
photos credit: Snapper/Wenn/Avalon and Getty
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