Sam Neil
EXCLUSIVE: Neill underwent chemotherapy after being diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma
Actor Sam Neill has revealed he is being treated for stage three blood cancer in an honest memoir to be released on Tuesday.
In an interview with the Guardian about his book Did I Ever Tell You? after opening his book with a shock.
“The thing is, I’m a crook. Possibly die,” he writes in chapter one, “maybe I need to speed this up.”
Neill began writing vignettes of his life last year to keep himself occupied – and as a salve – while he underwent treatment.
“I had nothing to do,” Neill said in the interview. “And I’m used to working. i love working I like going to work. I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all those things. And suddenly I was deprived of it. And I thought, ‘What should I do?’
“I never intended to write a book. But as I went on and kept writing, I realized that actually it gave me a reason to live, and I would go to bed thinking, ‘I’m going to write about this tomorrow… this will entertain me.’ And so it was really a lifesaver because I couldn’t have gotten through this without doing something, you know.
In Have I Ever Told You That? – with the headline supported by the likes of Meryl Streep, Laura Dern and Stephen Fry – Neill reveals himself to be an enormously good storyteller with a collection of stories that take the reader from his first seven years in Ireland to growing up in New Zealand and the eccentricities of his family life, through funny coming-of-age stories and amusing anecdotes from movie sets over the years (co-stars misbehave, note).
He said his book isn’t a cancer memoir, but his illness forms a “spiral thread” through the narrative.
Neill first developed swollen glands while promoting Jurassic World Dominion in March last year and was soon diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma. He received chemotherapy, but when it began to fail, he started a new chemotherapy drug, which he will continue to receive monthly for the rest of his life, even though he is now cancer-free.
“I can’t say the last year hasn’t had its dark moments,” he said. “But those dark moments shed the light in sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for each day and immensely grateful for all my friends. I’m just happy to be alive.”
Neill, whose acting career began in the 1970s and has spanned over 150 roles from My Brilliant Career to The Piano to Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders, is currently preparing to film Liane Moriartys’ television adaptation bestselling novel Apples Never Fall. will be filmed in Australia and will star Annette Bening.
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