After nearly 20 years in Hollywood, Colin Egglesfield has learned a thing or two about surviving ups and downs, which became critical when he was diagnosed with cancer. Now in remission, the soap vet and Rizzoli & Isles alum opened up about his past health scare — and how fellow cancer survivor Lance Armstrong has inspired him — while attending the Cleo restaurant reopening in L.A. on Saturday, June 15.
“After being diagnosed with it, it’s just a very scary experience because it’s all the fear of the unknown. I didn’t know what to expect, so reading about someone who had gone through [a] similar experience gave me the courage and the inspiration knowing that if he could do it and go on and survive and do what he did, it they gave me hope and inspiration that I could do the same thing,” Egglesfield, 46, told Us, noting that he wrote about his own experience in his new book, Agile Artist: Life Lessons From Hollywood and Beyond. “So that’s why I wrote this book because I wanted to be able to share my experience so that in hopes of it helping someone else go through the same thing so that they don’t feel alone.”
His dedication to his craft has helped him through his cancer battle. “That’s one of the things about acting — you get taught that you need to create reality or the truth in imaginary circumstances. So a lot of the acting training that I learned has helped me in my personal life and that’s what I talk about in my book. And it really helped me get through my cancer experience because I just knew that I needed to become a different person. And one of the biggest pieces of advice I got was from my mom, when after I got diagnosed for the second time. At that point I literally thought that it could be the end,” he told Us. “I remember calling her up one day and I broke down and she was like, ‘Colin, you may not be able to deal with this. But you need to be a warrior. You need to put your armor on and you need to go to battle now.’ Once she gave me that context, it made me realize, you know what? I do, because otherwise this is too overwhelming and it could crush me. So that really helped.”
Egglesfield — who has starred in films including Something Borrowed and Must Love Dogs — also recalls some of his favorite Hollywood moments in his new book. However, he’s recently said goodbye to L.A. and has moved back to Chicago.
“I felt like I needed to create some stability in my life to be able to invite a woman into it. So now that I’m back there and I’m able to come back here and feel a little more stable, I would say, I’m in the market,” the Michigan native explained to Us. “In Chicago, they talk less about kale juice and yoga. They talk more about like, ‘I had a deposition today,’ or ‘My employees didn’t make their sales numbers.’ … And I like the change in seasons. So I kind of feel like out here, it was like Groundhog Day after 10 years. So I just needed a break. But I’m still acting and working in Chicago and actually working on a reality real estate TV show in Chicago right now.”
