Samuel Johnson has announced that he would be retiring from acting to pursue his charity work raising money for cancer research.
The star of The Secret Life Of Us and recently Molly, Channel 7’s miniseries on the life of Molly Meldrum, Johnson has a long history of charity work. He helped set up Breast Cancer charity Love Your Sister back in 2012, riding around Australia on a unicycle to raise money after his sister was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
Posting to the Love Your Sister page Johnson said: “I think this is the best place for me to announce my retirement from acting, after nearly 25 years! And what better time to hang up my hat, so to speak! I can’t act anymore. Not if I’m to serve you properly.
“I cannot play pretend on telly while our families are falling. Cancer is the last true riddle of our time (not of our doing) and I wanna be part of the push to solve it once and for all.
“I won’t play pretend on television while science is being murdered. Not while federal funding for research remains static for ten years. Not while the CSIRO is being bulldozed. Not while climate science is still being denied,” he wrote.
Speaking of why he has decided to pursue the charity work full time he explained: “We raised $1.4M in our first year, $800K in our second year, and last year, down to $200K. We’re not going to get there if I’m off gallivanting. So I won’t. Not until we get to that $10M and show those faceless fuckers at the top end of town just how serious we are about research here at ground level.”
For Johnson there is no either or, his fundraising is what is most important to him and he can’t achieve his goal while distracted by acting.
“So call me Molly if you like. Call me Research Australia’s Advocate of the Year. Call me that annoying voice over guy. Call me a fundraiser, an advocate, an activist. Call me a brother who tries hard. Just don’t call me an actor. Not until we as a nation are as threatened by cancer as we are by terrorism. Not until the $10M is raised. Until then, I’m all yours, around the clock.”
You can read the full post for yourselves here.
To our amazing LYS Village,I think this is the best place for me to announce my retirement from acting, after nearly...
Posted by Love Your Sister on Thursday, February 25, 2016
