The news spread like wildfire, so Sam Neill made a point of evoking his illness himself. In his new book, Did I Ever Tell You This ?the actor of Jurassic Park and series Invasion revealed that he had stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, for several months. Information relayed by The Guardian and who pushed the comedian to reassure those who were worried about him.
The actor, who lives in New Zealand, said in a video posted on Instagram that he was in remission and doing “fine”.
“Hello, I’m Sam Neill. A bit of an actor, winemaker and, apparently, author. There are articles about me all over the news these days, like “Cancer! Cancer! Cancer!” which is a bit tiring, because as you can see I’m alive and well and I’ve been in remission for eight months, which feels really good,” he says.
A confession book
In his book, Sam Neill talks about his career in cinema and television, life on his New Zealand farm… and death. Indeed, the book opens with this shocking declaration: “The fact is that I am sick. Potentially dying”, “I may need to speed things up a bit”. So he wanted to clarify the situation.
“I just wish the headlines didn’t focus on that. The most important thing is that I wrote this book, Did I Ever Tell You This ?, which evokes my cancer because it is in this context that I wrote it. I didn’t really want to write a book, I needed something to do during my treatment. I used to work and suddenly couldn’t do it. That’s why I wrote the book, and I have to say it was very well received. »
Proof that his remission is going well: the 75-year-old actor even revealed that he was in the works for new projects. “I am alive and well and I am starting to work again. I am very happy to return to work,” he added.
Sam Neill will soon star in the series Apples Never Fallwith Annette Bening.