Jurassic Park star Sam Neill gives update on ‘scary’ cancer battle after undergoing gruelling treatment while filming The Twelve

Sam Neill has given fans an update on his health after being diagnosed with stage three blood cancer.

The 76-year-old Jurassic Park star says he feels “great to be alive” after undergoing gruelling treatment while filming his 2022 series The Twelve.

“It just meant that every second week we had to forget about the weekend because that would be a bit gloomy,” he told the Herald Sun.

‘But apart from that it’s great to live, work and be in beautiful places like York.’

Sam announced last year that he would be diagnosed with cancer during his first trip back to New Zealand in 2022. Due to the lockdowns, it was virtually impossible to go home and see his family for two years.

His son Tim told Australian Story that his father had only been back in New Zealand for an hour when a doctor called with the terrible news that he had cancer.

“When he hung up the phone and we sat down and we cried a little bit together. It was supposed to be a happy day. He wasn’t allowed to stay,” Tim said.

Sam continued: ‘I was really in a fight for my life. And everything was a new world and a rather alarming world.

Sam Neill has given fans an update on his health after being diagnosed with stage three blood cancer

‘I had three or four months of fairly conventional chemotherapies, which were quite tough.’

Tim went to visit his father who was undergoing chemotherapy and was shocked to see how weak he was.

“I was shocked, and I broke down and I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he gave me a hard time because I was angry about it and said I was stressing him out, but I said, ‘What are you talking about, Dad?'”

Just when they thought Sam’s health was improving, he received even worse news: the cancer had returned and this time the situation was more serious.

The Jurassic Park star told the Herald Sun he feels ‘great to be alive’ after undergoing gruelling treatment while filming his 2022 series The Twelve

Eventually, Sam was prescribed an experimental cancer drug, which thankfully began to work.

He has now been in remission for almost two years, but he admits he is “prepared” for the fact that it 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 it,” he said of the disease.

Sam is now on an infusion every two weeks and will have to do this for the rest of his life, or until the medication no longer works.

The sessions are gruelling, “very bleak and depressing,” he said.

Sam revealed last year that he found out he had cancer in 2022 during his first trip back to New Zealand, after lockdowns made it virtually impossible to return home to see his family for two years