Sam Neill has said he was diagnosed with “a vicious kind of aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.” In March 2022, the 75-year-old Jurassic Park actor was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer and believed, “I’m sick, I’m dying.”
According to the BBC, he began writing as a distraction and to “give me a cause to get through the day” while he was unable to work.
In his new autobiography, Did I Ever Told You This? he explores his sickness as well as his nearly 50-year film career.
On a publicity trip for Jurassic World Dominion last year, Neill first discovered he had enlarged glands in his neck.
When medics told him what was wrong, he described his reaction as “very stoic,” but it caused him to “evaluate the situation.”
“I felt the desire to do something, so I asked myself, ‘Should I begin writing?'” he adds.
“I didn’t believe I had a book in me, so I decided to create some short stories. I found it more captivating.
“A year later, not only have I written the book on my own, but it has also been published in record time.
“I assume my publishers, they’re lovely folks, but I think they wanted to get it out quickly in case I passed away before it was time to release the book.”
In fact, he believes at one point that the book’s subtitle may have been Letters from a Dying Man.
According to him, there are “black days.” During the first round of chemotherapy, he lost his hair and said in his biography,
“When I look in the mirror, I see an old, bald man.”
“Above all else, I want my beard back. I detest the appearance of my face.”
Non-lymphoma Hodgkin’s is rare cancer that arises in the lymphatic system – the enormous network of lymphatic arteries and glands.
The star of films including The Piano and the television series Peaky Blinders is currently in remission and optimistic.
“I have no fear of death,” he says. “I do not wish to cease life since I enjoy living so much.”
Sam Neill continues:
“I viewed it as an adventure, albeit a somewhat grim one, but an adventure nonetheless. And the happy days are incredible, and receiving good news is wonderfully thrilling.”
He emphasizes that the book is not about cancer. I cannot tolerate cancer literature.
Instead, the focus is on his “fun” and “unlikely” life and lengthy career. He has appeared in over 70 films, alongside Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Jeff Goldblum, among others.
Complain about muttering
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He does not believe that movie acting has changed significantly over the years, but he has a complaint about “mumbling” actors who fail to clearly articulate their lines.
“I believe that a lot of young performers have this thing where they whisper when no one else can hear them. It’s kind of seductive.”
According to him, neck microphones allow actors to “get away with whispering and rambling since the neck microphone records everything.”
“That is ludicrous. We speak so we can be understood. Someone has not placed a microphone around our necks to cause us to mumble.”
“Disclosing the beans”
In the novel, Neill goes “through my history and life’s alleys.” He declares, “That was a delight,” before adding, “Mostly.” And he is occasionally refreshingly unrestrained.
He views his co-star in The Piano, the American actor Harvey Keitel, as “tough and challenging and a little bit graceless.”
Clearly, Neill and Australian actress Judy Davis have no romantic feelings for one another. They worked in three films together, including My Brilliant Career, and he claims that she is the only actress who “made it apparent that I wasn’t in her league.”
“Look,” he continues,
“I probably should have titled my book Spilling the Beans, because there are some beans I shouldn’t have spilled, one of which was meeting Barbra Streisand.”
In the early 1980s, he was flown to New York to meet her in a hotel suite to explore a role in her film Yentl.
While he claims to have always adored her, he confesses,
“I’ve never liked her singing.”
As she sang not one, but two songs from the film at full power from just five feet away, he was, in his words, “in a state of shock and disbelief.”
Sam Neill is also the individual who refused to be James Bond. He auditioned for the role in the 1980s against his better judgment and on the advice of his “assertive” agent.
“I truly did not want to be the Bond that nobody liked.
“I didn’t want that position because you’re trapped with it forever… I have never desired star status.”
The book concludes with happy news. While Neill must continue chemotherapy treatments, the tumors have disappeared.
Apparently, he is set to begin production on a new picture in Australia with Annette Bening, the actress in American Beauty. He is now acting in The Twelve, an ITVX legal drama series.
“The last thing I want is for people to be cancer-obsessed,” Neill explains “because I am not very interested in cancer.
I have no interest in anything other than living.
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