“I’m a crook, maybe dying” – Jurassic Park star Sam Neill reveals he’s being treated for stage three blood cancer

New Zealand actor Sam Neill has revealed he was being treated for stage 3 blood cancer.

The Jurassic Park star revealed the news in his upcoming memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This, where he writes in the first chapter that he is “maybe dying”.

In an interview with The Guardian, the 75-year-old actor said: “The thing is, I’m a crook.” Maybe dying.

He added: “I might have to speed this up. I found myself doing nothing.

“And I’m used to working. I like to work. I love going to work. I like to be with people every day and enjoy human company and friendship and all those things. And suddenly I was deprived of it. And I thought, “What am I going to do?”

Neill also told the BBC he had ‘a fierce type of aggressive non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma’.

He started writing his memoirs as a distraction and to “give me a reason to get through the day”.

The book will look back on the New Zealand actor’s 50-year screen career, as well as his sudden illness.

Neill revealed he sought medical treatment after noticing he had lumpy glands on his neck while on a publicity tour last year for the film Jurassic World Dominion.

The Piano star remained calm when doctors told him of his diagnosis, and he immediately began plotting to write a book about his life.

‘I thought I had to do something and I thought, ‘Do I have to start writing?’ he told the BBC.

“I didn’t think I had a book in me, I just thought I would write stories. And I found it more and more captivating.

“A year later, not only did I write the book – I didn’t have a ghostwriter – but it came out in record time,” he says proudly.

And about the literary effort, he also said that he “never intended to write a book”.

Sam explained: “But as I continued to write I realized that this kind of gave me a reason to live and I was going to bed thinking, ‘I’ll write about this tomorrow… it will amuse me.

“And so it really saved my life, because I couldn’t have gone through that without doing anything, you know.”