Jurassic Park’s Sam Neill talks about his cancer and being “ready” for death

Sam Neill has shown that he lives for his profession, and at 76 years old, he still refuses to retire from a world in which he has over 150 credits across 5 decades. Neill has made a name for himself as one of the world’s most celebrated actors, with his largest role arguably coming as Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, which has spun off into its very own world.

It was on the presentation tour of the last film in the Jurassic World trilogy when he confessed that he had non-Hodgkin blood cancer, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. It is an illness that he has spoken about various times since the news was made public, including during an interview with ABC Australia: “I know I’ve got it”, he said, “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.” Neill has been in remission now for 12 months, requiring infusions every two weeks.

Neill ‘prepared’ for his death

Back in May he confessed in his memoir that “the thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up”, and in his interview with ABC Australia, he indicated that he had full confidence in the doctors, although he is aware that the disease continues to advance, despite the treatment.

I’m not afraid to die,” he said to The Guardian, “but it would annoy me. Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”

Leaving the world of cinema is “horrifying”

Neill told ABC that he has spent several months undergoing chemotherapy, which was a very complicated stage of his life: “It was not a very pretty sight: I had no hair or beard. I had some very lonely moments last year.”

In the end, the chemotherapy did not work and he was instead given a rare cancer-fighting drug which, for now, is doing the job: “I’m prepared for that [for the drugs to stop working]” he simply said when asked.

Now, despite things being difficult due to the illness, the actor does not plan to put aside his professional life. He is, in fact, not thinking about retirement at all, saying that leaving acting is something “horrifying”. It should be noted that Neill currently has several projects in the works, either as a performer, producer, or directly as a director.