Sam Neill has admitted that he is ‘grateful’ for his life as he attributes the success of his blood cancer battle to modern medicine.
The actor,Sam Neill 77, was diagnosed with stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, an uncommon type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (blood cancer), in 2022.
Sam Neill has been undergoing chemotherapy since March 2023, and has spoken out about how aggressive treatment is.
He previously had infusions every two weeks, and commented in August that the sessions are ‘very grim and depressing’.
Sam Neill told Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast: ‘If this had happened to me 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be around to talk to you.’
He also said that he ‘completely’ puts his ‘a brush or two’ with cancer down to agrichemicals (fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides).
Neill continued: ‘I’m in remission and as you see, I’m hard at work and enjoying life immensely.
‘I’m very grateful for not just the wonderful care I’ve had from doctors and nurses and so on, but also the strides that have been made in treating these things in the last few years.’
‘If this had happened to me 20 years ago, I wouldn’t be around to talk to you.”
Sam, born in Northern Ireland, said: ‘I go in [for treatment] once a month now. But, it used to be three times a month.’
‘You have sort three or four horrible days afterwards, and then all is well and you cheer up and I go to the gym and all that.’
The New Zealander shot to fame as dinosaur expert Dr. Alan Grant in the Jurassic Park saga in 1990s, and last appeared in the role in 2022.
Since 2022, Sam has been appearing in Australian drama The Twelve which follows the story of Kate Lawson, on trial for the alleged murder of her niece, and how the twelve jurors bring their personal lives and prejudices to the courtroom.
The Twelve was renewed for a third series in 2022.
Sam has also appeared in The Jungle Book, The Vow, Thor: Love and Thunder, and television series Merlin and Peaky Blinders.
He has a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the 1980s series Reilly, Ace Of Spies and an Emmy nomination for his portrayal of the titular wizard in 1998 miniseries Merlin, alongside the late James Earl Jones.
In August, Sam was left in tears during a heartbreaking interview when he was asked a simple question about his parents.
Sam broke down on the debut episode of ABC series The Assembly when asked what the ‘best lesson’ he learned from his parents was.
Stunned by the ‘interesting’ question put forth by one of the autistic interviewers in training, he struggled to hold back tears as he reminisced over his mother Priscilla.
‘Wow, that’s a really interesting question. I think they were… [chokes up] I don’t know why that question has moved me so much, but it has,’ the Jurassic Park star said.
‘My parents were of the generation that went through a lot of things. They went through the [Great] Depression. My mother lost her father in the first [world] war.
‘She grew up without her father. They went through a lot of stuff, but they were very stoic people.’
Sam was born in Northern Ireland to Priscilla Beatrice (née Ingham) and Dermot Neill while his father, an army officer, was stationed in the country.
In the same episode, Sam joked that chemotherapy made him look like a ‘bald thumb’, adding: ‘It was embarrassing, and I lost my beard and everything, and my dignity went with it.’