Stanley Tucci's 'crippling' effect of cancer therapy appears years later

The actor says he has been left needing regular medication - and may have to up the dose

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Hollywood actor Stanley Tucci has said radiation treatment for cancer “burned out” his thyroid and left him feeling “completely exhausted”. The US actor, 64, received high dose radiation and chemotherapy after a tumour was found at the base of his tongue in 2017.

In 2024, several years after his cancer treatment, he noticed his energy levels were depleting while he was filming in Italy for a TV show. Appearing on David Tennant Does A Podcast With…, he said: “I would be so tired in the afternoon, like completely exhausted by one o’clock and I was like, something’s wrong with me”.

“Finally, when it was all over, or just before the last one (episode), I had a blood test and I was like, I know something’s f****** wrong with me.” “My thyroid was non-functioning,” he told the podcast.

The thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped gland in the neck near the windpipe that produces hormones affecting heart rate and body temperature. Having too much or too little of these hormones can cause symptoms that may need treatment, according to the NHS website.

He continued: “I was like, what is it? Is it stress? Cause you can have them from stress and whatever. I was like, I don’t know what’s happening, and they kept saying ‘your cholesterol level’s really high’. I was like, why? It doesn’t make any f****** sense, and what happened was because I had radiation six, seven years ago, it burned out my thyroid.

“So it’s only just happening now and I talked to my oncologist in New York… He goes, ‘Yeah, I think sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t happen’.”

He added: “And so he goes, yeah, that’s because of the radiation. I was like, OK, fine as long as I know it’s not some … hideous thing or some genetic whatever. Then you take this pill, which is basically Synthroid … I’m getting another blood test because I think I might have to up it a bit.

“Because I still get (tired) in the afternoon … literally you can’t think, you can’t move, you can’t think and once I started taking the pill, it made a huge difference, but I want to get back to where I was. It is normal and especially now I’ve just turned 64. I mean, there are times I don’t want to do f****** anything.”

The NHS website says an underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism), where the gland does not produce enough hormones, can lead to tiredness, weight gain and sensitivity to the cold, which can be treated by the patient taking daily hormone tablets. Damage to the thyroid during treatments for an overactive thyroid or thyroid cancer can cause hypothyroidism.

When the thyroid gland produces too much of the thyroid hormones this is called hyperthyroidism and symptoms include mood swings, tiredness, trembling and weight loss. In 2021, Tucci told BBC One’s The One Show that he was “very afraid to do the treatments but I had no option”.

“I had to eat through a feeding tube for six months,” he said. The actor, best known for appearing in the films The Devil Wears Prada and The Hunger Games, was widowed in 2009 when his wife Kathryn (Kate) Spath died from breast cancer.

The Conclave star is now married to Felicity Blunt, sister of Tucci’s The Devil Wears Prada co-star Emily Blunt. Tucci appeared on David Tennant Does A Podcast With… which is available on Spotify now.

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