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Sam Neill, 75, is opening up about his cancer battle for the first time.
The “Jurassic Park” star revealed in his new memoir, and in press interviews, that he was diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, last year. He underwent chemotherapy, but it didn’t work, so he switched to a different chemotherapy drug, which he will take for the rest of his life. He is now cancer-free.
Sam started writing vignettes about his life during treatment, which he turned into the memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?”
In the book, he writes, “The thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up.”
Neill also told The Guardian, “I never had any intention to write a book. But as I went on and kept writing, I realized 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.’ And so it was a lifesaver really, because I couldn’t have gone through that with nothing to do, you know?”
Neill began experiencing symptoms, including swollen glands, while doing press for “Jurassic World Dominion” in March 2022.
The BBC reports that in his memoir, he writes about looking in the mirror and seeing “a bald, wizened old man there,” adding, “More than anything, I want my beard back. I don’t like the look of my face one bit.”
Neill also told The Guardian, “I can’t pretend that the last year hasn’t had its dark moments. 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.”