Stanley Tucci opens up about alarming side-effect of cancer treatment
Stanley Tucci has shared the unexpected reason his life-saving cancer treatment has continued to impact his daily life.
The Conclave actor, 64, was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2017. He underwent radiation and chemotherapy treatment as the tumour doctors found at the base of his tongue was too large to operate on.
Tucci – who is now in remission – revealed that, although his cancer is unlikely to return, he has been left with other health issues as a result of his radiation treatment.
Speaking on David Tennant Does A Podcast With… Tucci said he was filming his BBC series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy last year when he noticed something was seriously wrong.
“I would be so tired in the afternoon, like completely exhausted by one o’clock,” he said. “I had a blood test and I was like, ‘I know something’s f****** wrong with me. My thyroid was non-functioning.”
Tucci first suspected his stress levels had impacted his thyroid function, with doctors telling him his cholesterol levels were notably high. However, they later concluded radiation treatment had “burned out” his thyroid.
The actor revealed he now takes the synthetic thyroid hormone pill Synthroid and will be undergoing further blood tests in order to treat the issue.
“I still get tired in the afternoon,” he admitted. “Literally, you can’t think, you can’t move…and once I started taking the pill, it made a huge difference.
“But I want to get back to where I was,” he added. “It is normal and especially now I’ve just turned 64. I mean, there are times when I don’t want to do f****** anything.”
In his most recent book What I Ate in One Year, Tucci revealed he thinks he has only 20 or 30 years left to live if he’s lucky.
When asked if that figure made him more sad or motivated, the Devil Wears Prada star replied: “A hundred percent sad, a hundred percent motivated.”
He explained: “There’s a letting go. In essence, of aging, I have started to welcome that, embrace that to a certain extent with certain things and then at the same time there are things you’re clinging to.
“That can be a good thing, but that can also just be, let it go. It’s alright. You’re never going to have that thing. That’s never going to work for you. That’s gone.”
Back in 2023, Tucci opened up about how his wife, the literary agent Felicity Blunt, helped him through his treatment for oral cancer.
Speaking about the high-dose radiation and chemotherapy he underwent, Tucci described the treatments as “brutal” and “awful”, saying: “I lost 35 pounds. I couldn’t eat. I had a feeding tube for six months and everything tasted like you-know-what and smelled like you-know-what.
“And it took months and months and months for me to finally be able to eat again and then taste properly again.”
“I was so afraid, but Felicity was very insistent,” he said. “I mean that she had to drag me, kicking and screaming, but now, I wouldn’t be around if I hadn’t done that [treatment].”
He said: “She was incredible. Still is incredible.”
