Sam Neill has revealed his “brutal” chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with stage three blood cancer.
The 76-year-old Jurassic Park star opened up about his drug regimen in the debut episode of ABC’s upcoming series The Assembly.
“I’m in a different one now, so at least I don’t look like someone’s bald thumb,” she tells a group of autistic journalism students under the tutelage of Leigh Sales.
“I looked like that for quite a while. It was embarrassing, I lost my beard and everything, and with that I lost my dignity,” he added.
Sam revealed last year that he discovered he had cancer in 2022 during his first trip back to New Zealand after lockdowns made returning home to see his family virtually impossible for two years.
His son Tim told Australian Story his father had been back in New Zealand for just an hour when a doctor called him with the terrible news he had cancer.
“When he got off the phone, we sat down and cried a little bit together. It was supposed to be a happy day. He couldn’t stay,” Tim said.
Sam Neill has revealed his “brutal” chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with stage three blood cancer.
The 76-year-old Jurassic Park star opened up about his medication regimen in the debut episode of the upcoming ABC series The Assembly. He is pictured with his son.
Sam continued: “I was really in a fight for my life. And it was all a new world and a pretty scary world.
“I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapy, which was brutal.”
Tim went to visit his father while he was undergoing chemotherapy and was horrified when he saw how weak he was.
“I’m in another one now, so at least I don’t look like someone’s bald thumb,” he tells a group of autistic journalism students under the tutelage of Leigh Sales.
‘I was in shock, I broke down and I could barely hold him. I was skin and bones. And then he criticised me for being upset and said I was stressing him out, but I said, “What are you talking about, Dad?”
Just when they thought Sam’s health might be improving, he received even worse news: the cancer had returned and this time it was more serious.
Eventually, Sam was prescribed an experimental cancer drug, which thankfully started to work.
He has been in remission for almost two years, but admitted he is “prepared” for the fact that he will eventually stop working.
“I know I have it, but I’m not really interested in it. It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get involved in it,” he said of the disease.
Sam now receives infusions every two weeks and will do so for the rest of his life or until the medication stops working.
The sessions are exhausting, “very grim and depressing,” he said.