Post by Sarzy on Mar 18, 2023 12:39:40 GMT
The actor Sam Neill has revealed he has had "a ferocious type of aggressive" non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The Jurassic Park star, 75, was diagnosed with Stage three cancer in March 2022 and thought: "I'm crook, I'm dying."
Unable to work, he started writing as a distraction and to "give me a reason to get through the day," he tells the BBC.
In his new memoir, Did I Ever Tell you This?, he discusses his illness and his near 50-year career on screen.
Neill first noticed he had lumpy glands in his neck on a publicity tour for Jurassic World Dominion last year.
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When doctors told him what was wrong, he said his reaction was "pretty phlegmatic", but it made him "take stock of things."
"I thought I need to do something, and I thought, 'Shall I start writing?'" he says.
"I didn't think I had a book in me, I just thought I'd write some stories. And I found it increasingly engrossing.
"A year later, not only have I written the book - I didn't have a ghost writer - but it's come out in record time.
"I suspect my publishers, they're delightful people, but I think they wanted to get it out in a hurry just in case I kicked the bucket before it was time to release the thing."
Indeed at one point he thinks the subtitle for the book might have been Notes from a Dying Man.
There are, he says, "dark days." He lost his hair after the first round of chemotherapy and writes in the memoir that when he looks in the mirror, "there's a bald, wizened old man there."
"More than anything I want my beard back. I don't like the look of my face one bit."
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a less common cancer that develops in the lymphatic system - the vast network of vessels and glands in the body.
But the star of films including The Piano, and TV's Peaky Blinders, is now in remission and remains positive.
"I'm not afraid of dying," he says. "What I don't want to do is to stop living, because I really enjoy living."
He continues: "I've regarded it as an adventure, quite a dark adventure, but an adventure nevertheless. And the good days are just fantastic and when you get some good news it's absolutely exhilarating."
The book, he is at pains to stress, is not about cancer. "I can't stand cancer books."
Instead it is mostly about what he calls his "fun" and "unlikely" life and long career. He's appeared in more than 70 films, working alongside actors including Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett and Jeff Goldblum.
