Stanley Tucci is opening up about his 2017 oral cancer diagnosis.
While speaking with Willie Geist on the April 30 episode of “Sunday Sitdown,” Tucci, 62, said it was “terrifying” when he learned he had the disease.
His first wife, Kate, died from breast cancer at age 47 in 2009.
“My late wife and I, we traveled all over the world trying to find a cure for her. So when I got it, I was completely shocked,” he told Geist. “I was terrified, absolutely terrified.”
Tucci said he was grateful that the cancer hadn’t spread to other parts of his body.
“That’s a big deal,” he said.
However, he shared that the treatments were “brutal” and “awful” and greatly affected his diet.
“I lost 35 pounds,” he said. “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.”
Tucci credits his wife, Felicity, and his “Devil Wears Prada” co-star and sister-in-law, Emily Blunt, for helping him get through that time in his life.
“I was so afraid,” Tucci said. “But Felicity was very insistent.”
“She was incredible. Still is incredible,” he added.
Now, Tucci has been tackling new projects, including the TV show “Citadel,” which he described as a “twist on the usual spy genre.”
“It was really fun to do,” he said. “They have the technology today to do stuff they’ve never done before.”
In the series, Tucci plays Bernard Orlick, a techie who takes care of the spies, but can also handle himself out on the field.
The “Lovely Bones” actor stars in the Prime Video series alongside Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden.
He also shared with Geist an update on his show “Searching For Italy,” a travel and food program about the country’s regional cuisine. With two seasons under its belt, Tucci said he feels an “obligation” to the audience to continue it.
“It makes them so happy,” he said. “People all the time on the street everywhere I go, they’re, like, ‘I can’t tell you how much I loved that. And we’re in Italy because of you. We got married in Italy because of you.'”
He also discussed his April 2020 viral moment when he made his wife a negroni and posted a video of the process to Instagram. Geist asked Tucci how he feels about the internet’s “obsession” over the actor.
“I’m 62 years old. This is a very odd time for people to go, like, ‘Hey,'” he said, with a laugh. “But it’s — I don’t know what it is, it’s great. You know, it’s great. And you’d be an idiot to go, like, ‘I hate it.'”
This article was originally published on TODAY.com