Sam Neill on cancer; living in remission
One of New Zealand’s best-loved actors, Sam Neill, has talked openly about not knowing whether he would live to see the release of his memoir, due out this week, after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
Neill revealed that he has been in remission now for eight months after radical new cancer treatment following previous treatments that failed.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand’s Kim Hill ahead of the release of his memoir, Did I Ever Tell You this, Neill said he was diagnosed with cancer a year ago and he started writing about his life after being told he had stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma and it was aggressive.
‘‘I was told I would need to undergo chemotherapy pretty quickly. Which I did; I flew back to Australia; I found myself marooned in my flat with nothing to do and I’m used to going to work, used to doing things, used to company . . . so I started to write down stories and after a while I realised I was collecting quite a lot of stories, and it seemed to have a narrative of some kind.’’
At the time he started writing, he didn’t know how long he had to live and when the first type of chemotherapy failed ‘‘it looked like I was on the way out’’.
So he was ‘‘writing against the clock’’.
He had since been placed on a new type of chemotherapy, which was working.
‘‘I am in remission and that’s why we are talking,’’ Neill said.
‘‘I did ask my Christchurch doctor . . . who was quite frank, and I said if we hadn’t found this particular chemo, what would have happened. He said ‘well Sam, you wouldn’t have finished your book’.’’
He continued to receive chemotherapy three times a month and while ‘‘it does beat you up, I’m not complaining’’.
The diagnosis had taught him it
was great to be alive.
And since going into remission he had been able to start work again ‘‘which I have to say is absolutely fantastic after 12 months of not working’’.
He is currently in production on Apples Never Fall, a series based on Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty’s best selling novel.
And he was looking forward to reprising his character Brett Colby in a second series of the Australian television drama The Twelve, in the second half of the year.
‘‘I enjoyed that bloke so much he’s the one person coming back.’’
He revealed the character was grounded in ‘‘some old barrister friends of mine in Christchurch . . . They’re wonderful old wind bags, and I love them dearly.’’
And while his work continued to take him overseas, he planned spending Christmas at his central Otago farm and vineyard.
‘‘I miss it so much when I’m away . . . but a man has to earn a living.’’