More information has come to light after Sam Neill’s passing.
Three days after the Jurassic Park star died at the age of 78, his manager Philip Grenz confirmed to TMZ that Neill died of pneumonia, and that his passing was unrelated to his 2022 lymphoma diagnosis, having been declared cancer-free earlier this year.
For Neill’s friends and loved ones, they suspected he would have spoken about his health battle the same light-hearted way he did about his cancer—like it was nothing more than a nuisance.
As his friend and Hunt for the Wilder People costar Rima Te Wiata told the New Zealand Herald, “I think he would be like, ‘For goodness sake, I got over my cancer. And now look, now I get pneumonia. What next?’”
And though Te Wiata finds comfort in knowing her friend is on “his big journey now,” she suspected he would’ve been “annoyed” by the way in which he went.
Indeed, the sentiment is one with which she echoed Neill nearly word for word, with the Peaky Blinders alum previously sharing how the only reason he was reticent to die was for the daily wonders he’d be leaving behind on his New Zealand farm.
