“I’m not afraid of dying, but it would really bother me.” This is how forceful the New Zealand actor Sam Neill was last March, when he announced that he suffered from a rare type of blood cancer that would force him to undergo chemotherapy treatment for the rest of his life. At 76 years old, he realized that he might not have much left, so he left everything and returned to his native country, to live in nature.
Since then, he has remained there, on his ranch in South Wales. Without hair, having bad times every time he has to undergo the aggressive treatment. Neill suffers from T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which is very rare and has a very poor prognosis. Still, he insists in statements to Australian Story that he is “not interested” in his illness. “He is out of my control. If you can’t control him, forget it.”
A few months ago, the actor agreed to undergo a new treatment with an experimental, but very expensive, drug. “They told me that if I survived four months, they would do it for me for free. I have a certain halo of a lab rat,” he joked, speaking to The Guardian. It’s been 12 months, and he is in remission. “I’m not completely recovered, but I don’t have cancer in my body,” he announces triumphantly.
To stay that way, you will have to undergo treatment every two weeks for the rest of your life. An unavoidable, painful and depressing appointment; but that keeps him alive. At least, for the moment, because doctors have already warned him that one day he might stop doing it. “I’m ready,” he says.
It is not the first time that the actor has spoken out about what he thinks about his own death. After his diagnosis, he himself admitted that the first thing he thought was that he would have loved to “have one or two more decades” ahead of him to do everything he had planned. “But dying? I couldn’t care less,” he said then.
Precisely being so aware of his death has also made him appreciate the things and details of life. “We rarely ask ourselves who we are. When I was sick I looked in the mirror and saw a totally different person, without hair on my head, without eyelashes, without a beard. I was unrecognizable. That’s when the questions began. Who am I? We never asked ourselves. We stop to reflect on ourselves or what we do.
Months of questions in which he has come to an understanding and peace with himself, reaching a very simple conclusion: the important thing is to take advantage of these moments in which he is alive.
“I can’t pretend that this last year hasn’t had its dark moments, but it’s been those dark moments that bring out the light and have made me feel grateful for each day and immensely grateful for all my friends. Just glad to be alive.”