Alex Kingston underwent treatment for cancer in 2024 and has opened up about how it affected her career in a new interview. Speaking with Saga Magazine, the Doctor Who actress, 63, recalled: “I was due to start another TV show when I was diagnosed with cancer and had to walk away – something I’d never done before and which felt very uncomfortable.
“Like many actors, you always fear you won’t work again, and I worried people might think I was unreliable.”
Alex’s cancer treatment
Alex, who is best known for her portrayal of Dr. Elizabeth Corday on ER alongside George Clooney, was diagnosed with uterine cancer in May 2024 and underwent a hysterectomy and radiation therapy.
© Getty Images“That took up a huge part of my life,” Alex told The Independent last year of her cancer treatment.
“I had assumed that the way I was feeling was old age, and I just sort of accepted it… I thought, ‘OK, this is what it’s like to be in my sixties.’ But a lot of how I was feeling was to do with my illness. I never went down the cancer road in my head. It was a shock.”
Alex returns to TV work
By September 2025, she was well enough to compete in the 23rd series of Strictly Come Dancing.
Of her experience on the BBC ballroom show, Alex told Saga Magazine: “I knew I could hear a beat and that I didn’t have two left feet, and I love dancing to Latin music, but I certainly didn’t think that I was going to be able to do any ballroom dancing.
© BBC/Kieron McCarron“I have to say, I truly loved my experience, and it was the perfect antidote to coming through cancer treatment,” she added. “To be paired with Johannes Radebe was a dream. He’s got a beautiful soul.”
Alex’s upcoming TV show
Now, Alex looks forward to the future and has stepped back on set for a role in ITV’s upcoming spy thriller, Secret Service, set for release later this year. Alex will star alongside lead actress Gemma Arterton, as well as Timothy Spall’s son, Rafe Spall.
© Getty Images“Secret Service was the first job I was offered after treatment and it felt perfect – not a huge role but enough to ease me back in,” she told the magazine.
Of her outlook on life now, Alex said: “I’ve always been a positive, glass-half-full type of person, and going through a cancer journey has made me double down on that. It makes you confront your mortality, but I intend to live to 100.”
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