Jurassic Park star Sam Neill revealed he’s dealing with a diagnosis of stage-three blood cancer. According to The Guardian, Neill was diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma and underwent chemotherapy to combat it in 2022.
As Neill details in his new memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This? his first round of chemotherapy didn’t provide positive results and he is now dealing with a chemo drug that he’ll take for the rest of his life.
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“I’m not afraid to die,” Neill tells 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.”
Neill is best known for his Jurassic Park role as Alan Grant, reprising it in the last entry in the series, Jurassic World Dominion. But beyond dinosaurs, Neill is all over the place in stuff like Dead Calm, Possession, In The Mouth of Madness, Event Horizon, and countless others. If you haven’t seen Hunt for the Wilderpeople, you’re missing a modern classic.
The actor first discovered the symptoms while on promotion for Dominion in March 2022, finding “swollen glands” and seeking a diagnosis shortly after. While he seems as carefree as can be, there were moments where reality bled into his thoughts.
“I mean, 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,” Neill adds. “Just pleased to be alive.”
Neill currently has a few films in the can, including Scarygirl and Bring Him to Me, but he also has a role in the upcoming limited series Apple Never Fall, based on Liane Moriarty’s novel of the same name.
