Sam Neill reveals gruelling reality of chemotherapy after his cancer diagnosis
Actor Sam Neill has spoken about the reality of undergoing chemotherapy treatment. Photo / Getty Images
Kiwi actor Sam Neill has spoken out about his “brutal” experience with chemotherapy after he was diagnosed with stage three blood cancer.
Neill, 76, referenced his treatment on the first episode of ABC series The Assembly, where he appeared as an interviewee for a group of autistic journalism students, reports the Daily Mail.
The series follows Australian interviewer Leigh Sales as he mentors the students in the art of interviewing, with other well-known people set to appear including Hamish Blake and Delta Goodrem.
“I’m on a different one [treatment] now, so at least I don’t look like somebody’s bald thumb,” Neill said on the show.
“That’s what I looked like for quite a while - it was embarrassing, and I lost my beard and everything, and my dignity went with it.”
Neill was first diagnosed with cancer in 2022, when he returned to New Zealand following the Covid-19 lockdowns. His son Tim earlier told Australian Story about the doctor’s phone call that confirmed his dad’s diagnosis.
“When he hung the phone up and we sat down, and we had a little bit of a cry together,” he said. “It was supposed to be a happy day. He didn’t get to stay.”
Neill then spoke of undergoing a few months of “brutal” chemotherapies, as he was “in really a fight for my life”.
Tim recalled seeing the effect that the treatment had on his father, saying, “I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he was giving me a hard time for being upset about it and saying I was stressing him out, but I was going, ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’”
Despite the treatment, Neill’s cancer did return - at which point he started an experimental drug to treat it, which worked and led to him going into remission for almost two years.
The actor has said that he is “prepared” for the reality that this drug will cease to be effective at some point.
“I know I’ve got it,” he said of his cancer, “but I’m not really interested in it. It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”
He now gets infusions every fortnight and will continue to do so until they stop working.