“Jurassic Park” star Sam Neill said he’d be “annoyed” if he died three years before his tragic passing at age 78.
“I’d be annoyed because there are things I still want to do,” he explained on ABC’s “Australian Story” in October 2023.
But Neill — who was battling cancer at the time — noted he wasn’t “in any way frightened of dying,” and that death has “never worried me from the beginning.”
“I’m not afraid of it,” he added.
Neill shared the same sentiments in a March 2023 interview with The Guardian.
“I’m not afraid to die,” but it would annoy me,” he shared. “Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know?”
The “Peaky Blinders” star said he wanted to live long to enjoy his farm home in New Zealand’s Central Otago and to watch his “lovely little grandchildren” grow up.
However, Neill reiterated he “couldn’t care less” about dying.
Neill’s family announced Monday he had died — just two months after he announced he was cancer free following a battle with the rare blood cancer angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.
“Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his loved ones said on Instagram.
“The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free,” the statement added.
Neill spoke about getting diagnosed with cancer in his 2023 memoir, “Did I Ever Tell You This?.” In his book, he revealed that he first noticed swollen glands while doing press for “Jurassic World Dominion” in March 2022.
The actor underwent chemotherapy, but after that stopped working, he participated in a clinical trial for a type of CAR-T therapy that destroyed his cancer cells.
“I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing,” Neill shared in an interview with Australian network 7News in April.
Neill also said that he wanted to get back to work, noting with a smile, “It’s time I did another movie.”
Neill’s career spanned more than five decades with more than 150 acting credits.
He was best known for playing the paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster franchise “Jurassic Park,” a role he reprised in “Jurassic Park III” in 2001, and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in 2022.
Neill has acting credits for the upcoming 2027 movies “Godzilla X Kong: Supernova” and “The Last Resort.”
