Actor Sam Neill,
who became known worldwide for the role of paleontologist
Alan Grant in Jurassic Park,
revealed this week that he is undergoing treatment for stage three blood cancer.
It was during a series of interviews that he recounted the first chapter of his memoir, entitled "
Did I ever count this?
", which will go on sale in the UK next week.
“The thing is, I'm a thief.
Possibly dying”, begins the first chapter of the book.
“Maybe I have to rush this,” he continues.
Neill began jotting down some notes on his life as a way to keep busy, and as a relief,
while undergoing treatment for the past year.
“I found myself with nothing to do,” Neill said in the interview.
“And I am used to working.
I love working.
I love going to work.
I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all that stuff.
And suddenly I was deprived of it.
And I thought, 'what am I going to do?
'" he told The Guardian.
"I never intended to write a book. But as I went on and on writing, I realized that I was actually giving myself a reason to live, and I would go to bed thinking, 'Tomorrow I'll write about it…it. It will entertain me.
A real lifesaver
, because I couldn't have gone through that with nothing to do," he said.
Neill
first noticed a series of bulging glands on his neck last year
during a publicity tour for Jurassic World: Dominion, the sixth installment in the dinosaur franchise.
When doctors told him what was wrong, he said his reaction was "rather phlegmatic" but it made him "take stock."
"I thought I had to do something and I thought,
'Should I start writing?'
", she says.
"I didn't think I had a book in me, I just thought I'd write some stories. And I found it more and more fascinating."
"A year later, not only did I write the book, but it came out in record time
," he told the BBC.
He said his book is not a memoir about cancer, but that his illness forms a "spiral thread" through the narrative.
Specifically, doctors diagnosed him with "
a ferocious type of aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma."
Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a less common cancer that develops in the lymphatic system, the vast network of vessels and glands in the body.
Neill received chemotherapy, but when it began to fail, he embarked on a new type of medication
that he will continue to receive on a monthly basis for the rest of his life
.
“I can't pretend that the last year hasn't had its dark moments,” he said.
“But those dark moments have made me feel grateful for each day
and immensely grateful for all my friends.
Just glad to be alive,” he added.
One of the things she misses the most is her hair.
She recounts that she lost him after the first round of chemotherapy and writes in his memoir that when he looks in the mirror, "there's a bald, withered old man there."
"More than anything, I want my beard back. I don't like the look of my face one bit."
In fact, at one point he thinks the book's subtitle might have been 'Notes from a Dying Man'.
In addition to Jurassic Park, Neill has acted in Peaky Blinders, Poseidon, The Hunt for Red October, and Event Horizon among others.
"I'm not afraid of dying," he says.
"What I don't want to do is stop living, because I really enjoy living," he closes.
look too
65: On the verge of extinction, the world was and will be a mess
In The Fabelmans Spielberg looks at himself and at Hollywood