Anjelica Huston Talks About Her Fight With Cancer

Anjelica Huston is healthy these days, she tells People, but that's nothing to be taken for granted after a bout of cancer that's now four years in the rearview mirror. "I'm at the four-year mark, and that means so much to me," the 73-year-old actor says. "It's a fantastic thing. I'm very proud of myself, and I've been very lucky." The diagnosis of the cancer—Huston isn't identifying the type—came after the release of John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum in 2019 in what she calls "a very serious moment for me."

"It came as a big shock, but it made me conscious of what I shouldn't do, of places I shouldn't go," she says. "One of those places was taking life too seriously. So now when the opportunity arises, I laugh, and I try not to make a big deal out of things." Of finding out that she was in remission, Huston says she "walked in my garden and smelled the roses and thought how clever I was." And now, four years later, she's ready to talk about it: "Sometimes you feel like you don't want to talk about it for the obvious reasons, but there's a lot to be said for talking about it and getting it out there and celebrating the fact that one's come through," she says. "Life is tenuous and wonderful." Huston is next appearing in Agatha Christie's Towards Zero on BritBox, out next Wednesday. (More Anjelica Huston stories.)