Actor Timothy Spall has told how his wife Shane helped him beat cancer.
The British actor , 57, found out he had leukaemia on the day he was meant to fly to the Cannes film festival in 1996 to celebrate Secrets & Lies winning the film festival's Palme d'Or.
The dad-of-three said: “I thought I’d be on the red carpet, not lying in hospital with a ray gun up my arse.”
Spall, 57, who plays JMW Turner in the new Mike Leigh film about the British painter, told Radio Times magazine how his wife helped him.
He said: “Shane is my Rock of Gibraltar. We were in it together. One day, after the doctors thought I’d relapsed and I was about to have a bone marrow transplant, I watched Shane pegging up the washing. She was just carrying on.
"All of a sudden I thought, 'F**k this. I'm having people tell me I might not... live'.
"I went down there and said to her, 'I'm going to tell you something, darling. I'm not going to die. I just decided. It's tough, but I know you know I'm not."'
He added: "Surviving a serious illness gives you an understanding that life is very much about other people. I don't think Turner, a genius who was obsessed with his work, did that as well as he wanted to. He tried to consider other people, but he found it incredibly hard.
"I'm lucky. I've learnt that there's no point in just living for yourself."
Spall said that his preparation for his role as Turner included being in character while ordering a drink from a London bar.
"One weekend early on, I was still struggling to find out what made Turner tick. I couldn't get out of character. I went into an empty bar in Clerkenwell and said: 'Are you a purveyor of wine?'
"I had to go outside and lean against the wall for a minute. Calm down now, sport! I went back and said (in his usual south London accent), 'Can I have a pinot grigio, please?"'
