Stanley Tucci Reveals Cancer Diagnosis

Stanley Tucci shared that he had been previously diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, but it has been treated and is in remission.

By Doug Norrie | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

stanley tucci

Stanley Tucci shared some somewhat shocking news last week when he revealed that he had cancer a few years ago and had gone through treatment. In an interview with Virgin Galactic’s in-flight magazine Vera (via Insider) Tucci said that he had a cancer diagnosis in 2018 when doctors found a tumor on his tongue. He had to go through intense rounds of chemotherapy and radiation to deal with the tumor but is currently in remission. 

In the interview with Vera, Stanley Tucci was open and forthright about what he went through with the cancer diagnosis on both a physical and emotional level. He talked in the interview about how he had lost his wife, Kate Spath-Tucci to cancer more than a decade ago in 2009. She died from breast cancer and Tucci had said that after watching her go through treatments, he vowed to never take the same route if given a similar diagnosis. But apparently, he was convinced by doctors that this was manageable and curable with the chemo and radiation, which ultimately had him opt into the treatment. 

Stanley Tucci gave some more details about what he went through a few years ago with this diagnosis as well, saying he was on a feeding tube for months and that it was a difficult time for his family. The treatments left him with little energy and, of course, there was the emotional piece considering the family had already lost someone because of cancer in the past. But this particular form of tongue cancer is much more treatable, with a 67% survival rate within a few years of the diagnosis. 

stanley tucci

Though he was on a feeding tube for months while they dealt with his tongue cancer, Stanley Tucci has never really had a significant downtime in his acting career. In fact, looking at his recent work over the years you’d be hard-pressed to find when the gap occurred while he was treated for cancer. After wrapping up The Hunger Games franchise back in 2015, he was in a number of movies over the next couple of years including Transformers: The Last Knight, Submission, and A Private War. He then starred in Limetown and has consistently voiced characters on BoJack Horseman for the better part of a decade. Plus he was in Jolt with Kate Beckinsale last year. 

And these days Stanley Tucci is as busy as ever. He is currently filming two different projects, multiple series which will be coming out next year. One is a mystery project called The Citadel which will have him starring alongside Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra-Jones. Plus he is working on another miniseries Inside Man with David Tennant. Before those hit the screen we will also get La Fortuna about the legal battle for the treasure associated with the sunken ship the Nuestra Señora de la Mercedes. 

In all, though it was a surprise to hear about this diagnosis for Stanley Tucci, it is good to know that he is recovering and that the cancer is in remission. He said that doctors are confident that it will not return.