In early 2022, Sam Neill found lumps on his neck after returning home to Australia. The actor had just been in Los Angeles where he was wrapping up promotional work for Jurassic World: Dominion. Thinking he had COVID, Neill went to a doctor where, instead, he learned he had non-Hodgkins blood cancer. Ever since, he’s been on a non-stop regimen of treatments, but he’s refused to let it stop his enjoyment of life at his winery, where he often shares photographs of his beloved pigs.
“I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it,” Neill told Australian Story. “It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”
However, the actor did get candid about his diagnosis. Neill was initially treated with chemotherapy, but his doctors soon noticed it wasn’t working. His tumor was still growing, so they turned to a rare anti-cancer drug, which has seemingly done the trick. Neill has been in remission for almost a year, but he requires infusions every two weeks. Doctors have also warned him that, one day, the treatment will stop working.
Neill’s response? “I’m prepared for that.”
Via Australian Story:
It’s not dying he’s afraid of. Neill thought deeply about mortality after the shock diagnosis and decided that, while dying would be “annoying” because he’s got more to do, he’s “not remotely afraid” of death.
But retirement? That “fills me with horror”, he says.
Neill isn’t joking. Despite the bi-weekly treatments, which leave him feeling like he’s “gone 10 rounds with a boxer” for a few days, the actor returned to work. He was most recently filming Apples Never Fall, the adaptation of the Liane Moriarty novel, before this year’s writers and actors strike.
Most importantly, Neill makes it a point to savor every day. He loves when he wakes in the morning, and especially on the days when he’s not feeling the effects of his treatment. “Ten days in which I could not feel more alive or pleased to be breathing and looking at a blue sky.”
(Via Australian Story)