Sam Neill breaks down in tears over easy query in interview

Sam Neill, who is currently fighting stage-three blood cancer, was left in tears during a heartbreaking interview when he was asked a simple question about his parents. 

The New Zealand actor, 76, broke down on the debut episode of ABC series The Assembly when asked what the ‘best lesson’ he learned from his parents was.

Stunned by the ‘interesting’ question put forth by one of the autistic interviewers in training, he struggled to hold back tears as he reminisced over his mother Priscilla.

‘Wow, that’s a really interesting question. I think they were… [chokes up] I don’t know why that question has moved me so much, but it has,’ the Jurassic Park star said. 

‘My parents were of the generation that went through a lot of things. They went through the [Great] Depression. My mother lost her father in the first [world] war.

‘She grew up without her father. They went through a lot of stuff, but they were very stoic people.’

Sam went on to describe a tough year he had in university when he did ‘bugger all’ because he was too busy acting in plays and ‘trying to find a girlfriend’. 

He said he became ‘very anxious’ as final exams came up and he realised he hadn’t done any studying, leaving him to confide in his mother about what to do. 

Sam Neill, 76, (pictured) who is currently fighting stage-three blood cancer, was left in tears during a heartbreaking interview when he was asked a simple question about his parents

‘I said, “Oh, I think I’m having a breakdown and I’ve got exams in a couple weeks and I don’t know how I’m going to go,”‘ he explained.

‘She just looked at me and she said, “Well, you’re just going to have to pull yourself together aren’t ya?”

‘I think that was the best lesson I learned from her is sometimes you just have to pull yourself together. It’s a tough lesson, but it’s a good one.’

Sam was born in Northern Ireland to Priscilla Beatrice (née Ingham) and Dermot Neill while his father, an army officer, was stationed in the country.

In the same episode of The Assembly, a series which sees a group of autistic journalists train under the the tutelage of Leigh Sales, Sam revealed his ‘brutal’ chemotherapy treatment after being diagnosed with stage-three blood cancer.

‘I’m on a different one now, so at least I don’t look like somebody’s bald thumb,’ he joked.

‘That’s what I looked like for quite a while – it was embarrassing, and I lost my beard and everything, and my dignity went with it.’

The New Zealand actor broke down on the debut episode of ABC series The Assembly when asked what the ‘best lesson’ he learned from his parents was. Pictured are Sam’s father Dermot (left) and mother Priscilla (right)

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

His son Tim told Australian Story his dad had been back in New Zealand for barely an hour when a doctor phoned with the awful news he had cancer.

‘When he hung the phone up and we sat down, and we had a little bit of a cry together. It was supposed to be a happy day. He didn’t get to stay,’ Tim said.

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

‘I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapies which are, brutal.’

Tim went to visit his dad as he underwent chemotherapy and was horrified when he saw how weak he was. 

‘I think that was the best lesson I learned from her is sometimes you just have to pull yourself together. It’s a tough lesson, but it’s a good one,’ he said

‘I was shocked, and I broke down and I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he was giving me a hard time for being upset about it and saying I was stressing him out, but I was going: “What are you talking about, Dad?”‘

Just when they thought Sam’s health might be improving, he received even worse news – the cancer was back and it was more serious this time.

Sam was eventually put on an experimental cancer drug, which thankfully started to work.  

He has been in remission for almost two years now, but admitted he is ‘prepared’ for the fact that it will eventually stop working.

‘I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it. It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it,’ he said of the disease.

Sam now has infusions every two weeks and will do so for the rest of his life or until the drug stops working.

The sessions are gruelling, ‘very grim and depressing,’ he said. 

Sam revealed last year he found out he had cancer in 2022 during his first trip back to New Zealand after lockdowns made returning home to see his family virtually impossible for two years. Pictured with his son Tim