Jeff Bridges says his tumor is now ‘the size of a marble’ – The Hollywood Reporter

His tumor has shrunk considerably, Jeff Bridges says, but his recovery from COVID has been a longer, more complicated process.

Talking to AARP For a recent magazine cover storyBridges gave an update on the status of his cancer treatment and talked about how he thinks through returning to work after his bout with COVID-19.

The actor, who spoke to the magazine a few days before filming the second season of old manHe said his health has mostly returned and that a 9-by-12-inch tumor he had at one time in his stomach had shrunk considerably during his treatment. (The actor publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma in October 2020 and shared in September 2021 that his cancer was in remission.)

I was doing those fight scenes for the first episode old man Little did I know that I had a 9-by-12-inch tumor on my body,” Bridges shares, before noting that his tumor has since shrunk “to the size of a marble.”

Where he found most of the challenges with his health is his recovery from COVID-19. Bridges was being treated for cancer at the same time he contracted the virus, a difficult situation for someone whose immune system was already struggling. He said the recovery process is still underway.

“A lot of the improvement has been about setting really small goals. At first they were like, ‘How long can you stand? Can you now walk five feet?”

The actor, who previously shared that he contemplates his own death while battling two illnesses, also contemplated — if he had survived — whether he’d be able to work again.

“I didn’t think I’d ever work again, really,” he told the magazine. So at first I said, ‘Okay, we’ll see.’ But eventually it became, ‘Maybe I can.’ I have to admit I’m still afraid to go back to work.”

What ultimately changed, he said, was the same kind of altered perspective that brought him through his COVID episode. “I started thinking of my recovery as a gift to be given,” he said.