12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen has revealed that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but is now “fully recovered”.
In a new interview with Deadline, the Oscar-winning filmmaker shared that he had surgery to remove the cancerous tumour two years ago, which delayed production of his World War II epic Blitz for two weeks.
The director said he didn’t tell any of the cast or crew at the time because he didn’t want them to be “concerned” and distracted from the filmmaking process.
“And that was it,” he added. “I really just wanted to get on with the job. And that’s kind of like who I am. I’m a ‘get on with it’ kind of person,” he said of his decision to keep the diagnosis private.
McQueen said that he is now “fully recovered and fully functional,” and that “includes downstairs,” he quipped. He attributed his recovery almost entirely to the importance of early detection.
“Early detection means virtually a hundred percent success rate. Again, it’s a cancer that if you detect early, it’s totally survivable,” he said.
Steve McQueen CREDIT: Stefania M. D’Alessandro/Getty Images for RFF
McQueen’s father died of the same disease in 2006, so the director knew there was a chance he could be faced with it too. That led to a number of routine scans and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) checks, which caught the tumour in the early stages of development.
“In some ways, you could say, my dad saved my life because unfortunately he died of it,” McQueen shared.
Earlier today (November 14), McQueen shared his experience in a speech at the House of Commons, where he launched a new campaign for Prostate Cancer Research. This specific form of cancer disproportionately affects Black men, which gave McQueen further incentive to raise awareness.
According to statistics shared by the organization, one in eight men will get prostate cancer, but “one in four Black men will get prostate cancer, and one in twelve Black men will die of prostate cancer,” he said. “So for me, it was about preempting it. The fact that I was preempting the situation for years was, again, my savior in that way.”
McQueen added that, by using his platform, he hopes other men like him won’t be “left to their own devices to navigate this on their own. The tragedy of this is no one has to die of it,” he concluded. “That’s the tragedy.”
Last month, the director revealed how he convinced former Jam frontman Paul Weller to act in Blitz, despite initially being “doubtful”.
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