Peaky Blinders

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By Rebecca JonesArts correspondent, BBC News

The actor Sam Neill has revealed he has had " a ferocious type of aggressive" non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The Jurassic Park star, 75, was diagnosed with Stage three cancer in March 2022 and thought: " I'm crook, I'm dying. "

Unable to work, he started writing as a distraction and to " give me a reason to get through The Day , " he tells The Bbc .

In his new memoir, Did I Ever Tell you This? he discusses his illness and his near 50-year career on screen.

Neill first noticed he had lumpy glands in his neck on a publicity tour for Jurassic World Dominion Last Year .

When doctors told him what was wrong, He Said his reaction was " pretty phlegmatic" But it made him " take stock of things. "

" I thought I need to Do Something , and I thought, 'Shall I start writing?'" he says.

" I didn't think I had a book in me, I just thought I'd write some stories. And I found it increasingly engrossing.

" A year later, not only have I written The Book - I didn't have a Ghost Writer - But it's come out in record time.

" I suspect my publishers, they're delightful people, But I think they wanted to get it out in a hurry just in case I kicked The bucket before it was time to release The Thing . "

Indeed at one point he thinks The subtitle for The Book might have been Notes from a Dying Man .

There are, he says, " Dark Days . " He lost his hair after The First round of chemotherapy and writes in The memoir that when he looks in The Mirror , " there's a bald, wizened old man there. "

" More Than anything I want my beard back. I don't like The Look of my face One Bit . "

Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is a less common cancer that develops in The lymphatic System - The vast network of vessels and glands in The Body .

But The Star of films including The Piano , and TV's Peaky Blinders , is now in remission and remains positive.

" I'm not afraid of dying, " he says. " What I don't want to do is to stop living, because I really enjoy living. "

He continues: " I've regarded it as an adventure, quite a Dark Adventure , But an adventure nevertheless. And The Good days are just fantastic and when you get some Good News it's absolutely exhilarating. "

The Book , he is at pains to stress, is not about cancer. " I can't stand cancer books. "

Instead it is mostly about what he calls his " fun" and " unlikely" Life and long career. He's appeared in More Than 70 films, working alongside Actors including Meryl Streep , Cate Blanchett and Jeff Goldblum .

Grumble about mumbling

He doesn't think screen acting has changed much over The decades But he does have a grumble about " mumbling" - Actors who fail to enunciate their lines.

" I think it's a thing that a lot of young Actors have that it's kind of sexy to have a whispering kind of thing that No One else can hear. "

He blames neck microphones, which he says enable Actors to " get away with whispering and mumbling because The Neck microphone is going to record everything. "

" It's ridiculous. We speak so we can be understood. We don't go around mumbling because someone has hung a microphone around our necks. "

'Spilling The beans'

In The Book Neill travels " through The Past and The alleyways of My Life . " It was " a pleasure" he says, before mischievously adding: " Mostly. " And at times he is refreshingly uncensored.

He describes his co-star in The Piano , The American actor Harvey Keitel , as " truculent and difficult and a bit graceless".

There is also clearly no Love Lost between Neill and The Australian actress Judy Davis . They appeared together in three films including My Brilliant Career and he says she's The only actress who " made it clear I wasn't in her league. "

" Look, " he adds, " I should've probably called this book, Spilling The Beans, because some beans I probably shouldn't have spilled And One of them was meeting Barbra Streisand . "

He was flown to meet her in a hotel suite in New York in The early 1980s, to discuss a role in her film Yentl.

While he says he has always admired her, he admits: " I've never enjoyed her singing. "

So when she sang not one, But two, songs from The Film , at full volume from a distance of about five feet away from him, he was, he says, " in a state of shock and dismay. "

Neill is also The Man who didn't want to be James Bond . He auditioned for The part in The 1980s, on The say-so of his " assertive" agent and against his better judgment.

" I really didn't want to be The Bond that everyone didn't like.

" I didn't really want that gig at all because you're stuck with it for The rest of your Life . . I have never wanted to be a celebrity. "

The Book ends with Good News . While Neill still has to undergo chemotherapy treatments, The tumours have gone.

Indeed he is about to start work on a new film in Australia with The Star of American Beauty , Annette Bening . He is currently starring in The ITVX Legal Drama series The Twelve .

" The Last thing I want is for people to obsess about The cancer thing, " says Neill, " because I'm not really interested in cancer.

" I'm not really interested in anything other than living. "

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Source of news: bbc.com