Sam Neill, Iconic Jurassic Park Actor, Is Undergoing Serious Medical Treatment
Sam Neill has been diagnosed with stage 3 blood cancer, and will be undergoing an experimental treatment for the condition.
Sam Neill, who is best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in the 1993 smash-hit blockbuster Jurassic Park, recently revealed that he was diagnosed with stage 3 blood cancer following the release of Jurassic World: Dominion in 2022 — angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, to be specific. The Guardian reports that Neill, now aged 75, has been taking a new chemotherapy drug to combat the illness. Neill, who is set to appear in both The Portable Door and Scarygirl this year, will reportedly have to take the drug for the rest of his life.
Thankfully for Sam Neill, he is currently cancer-free, but that doesn’t mean he’ll stay that way. Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma is a particularly aggressive cancer, and it has the potential to come back after it appears to have been eliminated. By continuing to take the drug every month, Neill will decrease the chances of this happening.
This information came out as part of Sam Neill’s memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This, which was released earlier this week. At the very beginning, Neill writes that he might be dying. According to Neill, his cancer diagnosis forms a so-called “spiral thread” throughout the book.
The memoir is not specifically about Sam Neill’s cancer, but it was his cancer that prompted him to begin writing the memoir. He began writing stories about his life as a way to kill time while not working — something he says gave him a reason to live. According to Neill, he would go to bed each night thinking about what he wanted to write about in the morning.
The memoir covers far more than just stories from Neill’s 52-year career, which began with the 1971 TV movie The City of No and includes such highly-regarded films as the adventure movie Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the horror film Event Horizon, and, of course, two Jurassic Park films and one Jurassic World film. While there is no shortage of anecdotes about his Hollywood experiences, the memoir also includes stories about his experience growing up in Ireland and New Zealand.
Along with his high-profile film roles, Sam Neill has also appeared in his share of TV series. Most recently, he appeared in The Twelve, an Australian miniseries about the jurors in a disturbing murder trial. He also appears in two seasons of the Netflix historical crime drama Peaky Blinders and the 2008 TV series Crusoe, based on the classic 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe.
Despite having such a wide-ranging career, it seems that Jurassic Park will always be the project he is best known for. It’s for that reason that he, with former co-stars Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern, was brought back to perform in Jurassic World: Dominion alongside Chris Pratt.
Sam Neill’s battle with cancer will last through the rest of his life, but that’s not stopping him from continuing his acting career. Along with the upcoming 2023 films The Portable Door and Scarygirl, Neill will appear in the TV Mini-Series Apples Never Fall, along with the films Bring Him to Me and Freedom Flight.
