Marisa Abela, 29, may be in remission now, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be able to stop taking medication.
The HBO “Industry” actress talked to The Sunday Times for a piece published on Jan. 3, about her health after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2020.
“I’m all in the clear now, thank God,” she told the outlet, explaining that she still has to go to regular check-ups and take medication for the rest of her life.
“I don’t have a working thyroid so these pills sort of create one. I’m never going to miss those appointments,” she said. “The thyroid is all to do with your hormones, and staying on top of your hormones, as a woman, to make sure things are running as they should, is important.”
The British actress was diagnosed at age 23 after a doctor spotted a lump on her neck. She had been feeling unusually tired at the time. Abela then underwent an eight-hour operation to remove the tumor, which was followed by radioactive iodine treatment.
In an October 2024 interview with The Times of London, Abela explained that she thought her time on “Industry” would be cut short after her diagnosis.
“When I first went to the bathroom after surgery and I saw myself in the mirror, I thought, ‘That’s it, my career is over,’ because [my neck] was stapled, bloody. It wasn’t pretty at all and the scar is big.”
In fact, Abela said that she couldn’t “imagine ever playing a character where her description isn’t, ‘And she has this big scar on her neck.’”
She further explained that after her cancer diagnosis that “there’s a distrust within your body that I really wouldn’t wish on anyone. This thing existed inside me for years without me knowing it was there — and that has changed my relationship with my body.
Abela continued: “I’m really not an ‘everything happens for a reason’ kind of person, and I don’t think that should happen to anyone, but I think that it does mean that you have a real perspective on what is important and what’s not.”
Abela plays Yasmin Kara-Hanani on the high-stakes drama “Industry,” which follows a group of ambitious, young graduates competing for permanent jobs at the prestigious, fictional London investment bank, Pierpoint & Co. Season 4 of “Industry” is set to premiere on HBO on Jan. 11.
