Sam Neill has a rare cancer, but is more afraid of retirement than dying

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

(CNN) — Sam Neill is in remission and back to doing what he loves.

The 76-year-old actor shared a health update with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation regarding his non-Hodgkin blood cancer, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.

“I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it,” Neill said. ‘It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”

According to the National Institutes of Health, the disease “is a subtype of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL)” and “accounts for only 1% to 2% of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas.”

Neill, known for his work in television and films like “Jurassic Park,” said that after three months of chemotherapy, the treatment stopped working. His doctors switched courses to try “a rare anti-cancer drug” and it’s had some success, Neill said.

Receiving doses of the drug every two weeks helped usher him into remission, though the star said doctors have told him that eventually it will cease to be effective.

“I’m prepared for that,” Neill said.

He said he’s “not remotely afraid” of dying and instead finds the idea “annoying” as he has so many things he wishes to do. Instead, he said, it is the idea of retiring which “fills me with horror.”

Neill would rather focus on his garden, his vineyards, his grandchildren and work.

Prior to the actors’ strike, he had been working with Annette Bening on the adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, “Apples Never Fall.”

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