Julie Walters says she feels like a ‘different person’ after overcoming cancer

Actor told Lorraine Kelly that she is now in good health

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Dame Julie Walters has said that she feels like a “different person” after having overcome bowel cancer.

Speaking to Lorraine Kelly on Good Morning Britain, the 70-year-old actor explained that she’s now in good health but remains uncertain with regards to whether or not she will continue acting.

“I had a scan in February and that was clear, so, yeah, as far as I know everything is fine,” Walters said of her cancer, which she first spoke about earlier this year.

But the illness has changed her outlook somewhat, she continued.

“Since the cancer, I’ve felt like that was a different person, the person who was acting the whole time,” Walters said.

“I feel like a different person now. People ask me about jobs like Mamma Mia and Harry Potter, and things like that, and it feels like it should be someone else answering, not me.”

Initially, Walters kept her diagnosis private. Now, speaking to Kelly, she revealed that she had an operation related to her cancer in June 2018, though she did not reveal any further details about what happened.

Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and, according to the charity Cancer Research UK, around 42,000 people are diagnosed with the condition each year.

In February, Walters spoke to the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire about her struggles with the illness.

Walters said she had two primary tumours in her large intestine, and was so shocked when she was diagnosed that she thought doctors “must have made a mistake”.

She was filming her new movie The Secret Garden when she was diagnosed.

“I was still thinking, ‘That’s ridiculous, he must have made a mistake,’” she said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Her treatment meant that she was cut from certain scenes in The Secret Garden and she also missed the premiere of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, in which she stars.