Jurassic Park star Sam Neill says he beat blood cancer after it seemed he “was on the way out.”
The 78-year-old actor told 7News Australia that he spent five years battling lymphoma, which included unpleasant but necessary chemotherapy treatments.
“Then the chemo stopped working,” he said. “I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal obviously.”
Neill reportedly turned to a CAR T-cell therapy treatment that genetically alters blood cells so that they become more easily visible to the body’s immune system and attacked.
According to Neill, a recent scan showed there’s no longer cancer in his system.
“That’s an extraordinary thing,” he said.
The treatment Neill credits for saving his life is available in the United States and becoming increasingly accessible in Australia. Neill was raised in nearby New Zealand.
He told Australian Story in 2023 that he’d began using a rare drug programme that forced his stage-three cancer into remission for a year, but that treatment was only believed to have been prolonging the inevitable. Neill said he didn’t fear death, but confessed that retiring “fills me with horror.”
Now that he’s on the mend, Neill said he plans to get back to making movies.
He’s built a resume over the past 50 years in such films as The Hunt For Red October, Dead Calm, The Piano and the Jurassic Park franchise. His television credits include a dozen appearances on British gangster show Peaky Blinders and voice work on The Simpsons. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
