Actor Evan Handler on Life After Cancer

How this 'Sex and the City' actor manages career, health, well-being -- and a new baby -- after leukemia.

Medically Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD on March 31, 2008
Written by Denise Mann
5 min read

There have been times when it felt like I went back to being the same person. I didn't turn to God and become born again. I didn't retreat from big city life or remain vegetarian or macrobiotic. Other times I think I have been completely shaped by those experiences. I think my life has become about trying hard to move beyond the cancer.

I have not put one on in a long time and would be eager to work with them more, but I am now known for the way that I look. I hoped my hair would grow back for a long time, but when it became clear that it would not, I shaved off whatever grew there.

I was just so horrified by so many of the things that I have seen. Logic seems to dictate that if navigating the health care system was not so hard, then more people would have the chance to hang in there and maybe get better. I thought it was a story that cried out to be heard.

It was very important, and largely led to my trading on it more professionally. I was not known for doing comedy or writing comedic material before my illness.

My advice has always tended to be to gather information. Information is power. It won't make your situation better, but it will make your odds of making good choices better

I do have panics that come on me if I have something wrong with me. It's difficult to presume it's nothing serious when it has been something serious in the past.

It was definitely there before, but nothing to be paid very much attention to. I was just another neurotic New York Jewish actor, but being a hypochondriac who gets a catastrophic diagnosis makes you the paranoid person who is really being chased.

It's very difficult. Exercise wouldn't be that hard, but it's difficult to motivate to begin with. I used to run, but I don't run very much anymore, now I lumber. I have been hitting tennis balls against the wall. Physical fitness is an ongoing challenge. Eating is a real problem both on the set and when I travel. I am either in a small town where there is nothing good available or in a big city where all I want to do is go out to good restaurants.

Luckily for me, I didn't have any of those issues for the first 30 to 35 years of my life. I was the skinniest kid in the neighborhood and the kid who could eat whatever he wanted without gaining a pound. The last few years have brought about a steady swelling.

I try to make myself more and more naked every time I weigh myself.

It was not true. I have no chronic hiccupping condition. I met a couple of writers in a bar and was hiccupping and it had been bothering me. That's all. It ended up being reported that I had them for two years and they disrupted filming. I got emails from all over the country from people wanting me to be a spokesperson for hiccup solutions. It's funny, I have had serious medical conditions in the past and I was never able to get as much press for them as I did for my nonexistent hiccups.

My wife and I have a hyperawareness of the bad things that can happen, and I underestimated how parenthood brings risk back into my life. I am back in touch with feelings that had gone blissfully dormant. We try to keep whatever anxieties we have from bubbling over and we take comfort from the fact that everything is great right now.

My wife and I somehow managed to conceive in spite of what was supposed to be fertility problems. There are some things in the movie that are similar to my story.

I don't see myself as that much Harry Goldenblatt, but I'd like to think that the prime qualities that he carries around of being soulful and good-hearted are part of who I am too. I am also really good in bed.