Sam Neill isn’t “afraid” to die.
The 75-year-old actor – who recently revealed that he’s received treatment for stage-three blood cancer – isn’t scared of dying, but he’d still love to live for “another decade or two”.
Sam told the Guardian newspaper: “I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me. Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know?
“We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big.
“But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”
Sam is now cancer-free – but his health scare has led him to become more introspective.
He shared: “It’s much easier to identify who other people are, but you hardly ever ask the question of yourself: who am I? You know, [when I was sick] I would look in the mirror and see a completely different person, not a hair on my head, no eyelashes, the beard had fallen off on a pillow somewhere in hospital. I was unrecognizable.
“I would look at this alien … Really? Is that you? So that begs the question, who are you? And so I had to think about that. I mean, it’s never really interested me to sort of reflect on myself. You know, sometimes you go, you f****** idiot, why would you do that? But that would be as bad as it would be.”
Sam discusses his cancer diagnosis in his new memoir, ‘Did I Ever Tell You This?’.
The actor confesses in the book that he feared passing away before it was even released.
He wrote: “The thing is, I’m crook. Possibly dying. I may have to speed this up.”