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Approximately one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. Actor Olivia Munn is one of them. Two years ago, despite receiving a negative mammogram and clearing numerous medical tests, Munn's doctor made a decision that she credits with saving her life, administering a lifetime risk assessment test that led to a diagnosis of an aggressive form of breast cancer. Soon after, Munn underwent five surgeries in less than a year, including a double mastectomy and a procedure to remove her uterus.
Just months after revealing her battle with breast cancer to the world, she and her husband, comedian John Mulaney, welcomed their second child with the help of a surrogate. And now Munn is returning to the screen, co-starring with Jon Hamm in the hit show, Your Friends and Neighbors, on Apple TV+. Take a look. Well, Keely, since you asked, my husband was just murdered in the foyer of our house, which is now a crime scene, which is why I'm staying at a hotel, which is why I need new products, which is why, as you so acutely observed, I might be in dire need of retinol eye patches.
We are in the middle of a very nasty divorce, so there's a part of me, a disturbingly large one, that is relieved that he's dead. But, I mean, Keely, I'm feeling guilty about that because he's the father of my kids, for God's sake. I mean, what kind of person does that make me? I sat down with Munn for a Meet the Moment conversation about what she calls her mission to help other women.
Olivia Munn, welcome to Meet the Press. Hi, I'm so happy to be here. What an honor. Thank you.
We are so happy to have you here. I'm so honored to be having this conversation with you. So thank you. Especially, like, talking to someone who really understands, and we've, you know, walked the same walk together.
So it really meant a lot when I got the call. Well, it meant the world when you accepted, and we are going to talk about our unique journeys to motherhood, and I'm really looking forward to that part of our conversation. I do want to talk to you first, Olivia, about the strength that you have shown and really the biggest fight I would imagine that you have faced. It has been more than two years since you were diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, and you shared this publicly with the world.
Most important question of the day is, how are you doing? I'm doing good. Doing good today. You know, I have a lot of friends, and I've met a lot of women who have the same type of cancer, which is hormonal.
And it's exhausting because our hormones have to be suppressed. And I don't think I ever really realized, like, how much we actually need them. I think that, you know, growing up, there's things that are tossed around a lot, like just verbiage that's tossed around a lot, and there's not really a connection to it. It's almost talked about so much that it doesn't seem important in a way, if that makes sense, or that maybe it's been figured out in the world and, you know, everything's just figured out for you.
It feels like by, like, scientists and doctors, and by this point, something like hormones. I'm like, oh, like, I didn't really think about them. And without having certain hormones in your body, you just get really tired or you have body aches and you can get hives from certain medications. There's just a lot to it.
So there's been a juggle with my medication with my oncologist. And the first the first medication that I took made me really exhausted. The second one made me really angry. I just had a short fuse.
And the third gave me such anxiety, like by the first day of taking it, I just had this, not a mental anxiety, but just a physical anxiety. When you have a physical anxiety, your brain starts to try to figure out what's going on because it doesn't know that this physical part is just physical. And so then I started having anxious thoughts. And so I don't have an option to not take this medication.
So I had to choose between three. Three personalities, exhausted, angry or anxious. And so I've gone back to choosing exhaustion. So but I think because I I've made the decision, I think because I made the decision that it was going to be exhaustion in a way, it's changed my thinking and I kind of just pushed through it and kind of refused to be exhausted.
And in a way, that's really helped me. That's why as soon as I will feel tired, but I won't live my life like I'm tired. I'll get up and be with my children and go for walks. And it's this this now has made me really happy because I, I had the strength when I was diagnosed to to just power through.
And knowing that there the end result was to, to be alive and be there for my family and to enjoy life. And it's different when you're told you have to be on medication for five years and you're like, where is the end of this every single day? But, um, but changing my mindset, I didn't, I, I didn't do it before with medication, even though I had done it with the diagnosis. Um, but now I've, I've locked it in again and I'm like, oh, it's, you know, I think that I've had many like journeys with my, with my state of mind and how I was viewing things.
And, um, I'm just grateful that I've come back to a place of perseverance and um, and a positive attitude that, that I'm just going to be like this and it's going to be okay. What you're saying is really important, I think, for people to hear. You are in remission now, but you still have to take medicine every day and it exhausts you. How do you find the strength, Olivia, to do that every day?
You know, having the exhaustion before and then having my personality change in ways that felt so foreign to me. And I'm not a short tempered person anymore. I've grown up through that. And um, and I dealt with anxiety in my life and I, I know what that feels like to go through life like that.
And it's just not fun. It's exhausting in its own ways. And I, um, the strength comes from wanting to be there for my kids, seeing how amazing they are and my husband is amazing. And seeing how much there is to enjoy in life, which is something that really focused in for me when I was diagnosed.
Um, so that's really the strength that gets me through. It's just knowing that, uh, there's so much beauty in this world for me to enjoy that I, it's just, um, you just get energized just by knowing. Take me back to that moment, if you would, if you can, when you were first diagnosed, that shocking moment when you were told that you did in fact have breast cancer. What was that moment like?
What went through your head? What went through your heart? So when my doctor told me to go get the MRI, I thought it was just a normal thing just because of my breast cancer risk assessment score. Although I had clear mammograms and clear ultrasounds, so I just thought, thankfully, she's just being proactive and we're going to check that off the list.
It's going to be another thing that's clear. And then I get a call that same day from the radiologist saying, hey, we did find something and you need to go do an ultrasound now. And I remember exactly where I was standing. I was in our dining room and I was on this call and then John walks in from outside with our son.
And I said, the radiologist just called and I'm really scared. And he was like, OK, but do you think it's something like that to be concerned or do you think it could be benign? And there's just something in my gut that felt like this is something to be scared about. And I had reached out to one of my close girlfriends and had asked her if she'd ever done something like this.
And she said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had an MRI. They found something, too. And it ends up being benign and most likely it's not. And I'd actually have a few friends who are doctors and around the world, like, you know, in L.A., but also like in South Carolina and in Montreal.
And I was like, let me just ask people that aren't just like, you know, just around the world. I was thinking that maybe just the more people in more locations would just make me feel better about having their expertise and their knowledge. And everybody said, no, you're too young. Like, you don't have to worry about this.
This can't happen to you. Yeah, it can't happen. So then when I did the ultrasound, there was this moment where the tech was doing the ultrasound and she's getting really quiet. And I was like, is everything OK?
And she's like, let me go get the doctor, which everybody kind of knows at this point. That's never the thing you want to hear. So the doctor comes in and she's looking and I hear her kind of go, hmm, hmm. Like, well, I said, just what do you see?
She said, well, I see the one from the MRI, but now I'm seeing two more. And she explained about how, you know, tumors have the jagged edges and they're not perfectly round and perfectly round is usually a sign that it's benign or it's a cyst and not to worry. And that cancer tumors grow in these really I didn't want certain people in my life to know. At that point, I wanted no one to know.
And then eventually, especially because, well, I didn't want anyone to know for the first couple days, but then I saw John struggling with it and knowing he had to keep it to himself. And then I just thought, You know, he needs his own support system. So I told him, you can tell who you want, and then I started feeling more free to tell people. But I knew people who wouldn't be speaking about it publicly or posting about it or leaking it to somebody.
And I needed it to stay private because I had to stay positive and I had to fight. I couldn't imagine going through a battle like this and having all this outside noise. And it wasn't until, it wasn't until I was looking back on photos with my son, and just as you do, you know, you kind of go through your photos and videos. And I, I saw this one of him and I playing in the front yard.
And I thought, Oh my gosh, like I had, I had cancer then, and I didn't know it at all. And how many other women are out there right now with a clear mammogram, clear ultrasound, walking around, they don't know about this lifetime risk assessment test that was like free and online. And it saved my life. And so I knew, I knew maybe about, I'm not sure, like it was months into the journey that I, I knew that at some point I would talk about it.
The cancer risk assessment. You had done everything right. You had gotten a mammogram. You had been given a clean bill of health.
And your doctor said, get a cancer risk assessment, something that most women probably haven't heard of. And you credit that with saving your life. Yeah. I hadn't heard about it.
And it's this free online test. And, and nowadays there's, there's this company that does like free MRIs and you see a lot of people and influencers and celebrities posting about it and it's like $5,000 or something like that. And it's completely unattainable for a lot of people. And I thought, well, that's not really helping anybody.
And I saw that before and just thought, well, like, I don't want to do that, you know, either. And, and also who are the radiologists? Because something I learned through my journey was that, um, it really matters the person looking at the MRI, the mammogram, the scans. It, it, it really matters to have people who really understand what cancer looks like and is really proactive.
Um, because also some of it's hard to find, you know, my, like I said, I had one doctor find the one from the MRI. The second doctor found two from the ultrasound. And then another radiologist went back and looked at my original MRI and said, I think I see something in her left breast now. And then we do an MRI biopsy of that.
And that turns out to be cancer as well. And then after my double mastectomy, they do this thing called margins. And that's when they, they, they take the tissue and then they look how far out the cancer is before they really decide what your stage is. And they find, found this tangerine size section of more cancer.
And at that point I'm calculating with me think that's like one, two, three, four different doctors that it took. And these are like top doctors. So I, I just, I understand the importance of the people looking at the doctors who are assessing it. And, um, with the first step into, into being proactive about your health, especially for women is this lifetime risk assessment test.
And I thought, you know, this is free online. It takes minutes. You don't have to even put your email address in and like, you know, give all your personal data. You just take this test and it spits out this number.
And, um, and it a hundred percent saved my life. I don't know how long it would have taken me to find the cancer because I wasn't due for another mammogram for a year. So at least a year. Well, the National Cancer Institute says that since you have decided to share your story, more women are actually getting a cancer risk assessment.
And journalist Alison Hall says she got a cancer risk assessment, found out that she had breast cancer. And she thinks that you and that test saved her life. Olivia, what does that mean that you are saving lives? You're impacting women all across this country.
That makes me really emotional when I think about that because I, like that was my goal, was for every woman to know about this test. It's something that I really wanted women to incorporate into their, into their health plan. And when I got the response and hearing about it going globally and people in different countries talking about it and making the news in other parts of the world, and then to meet women who come up to me when I'm on the street or at the store and then to hear Alison's story. It just, it makes me really emotional because it became my mission and feeling like I'm, I'm just feeling like it's working, that women are finding out about this and it's saving their lives.
It's just, um, it's, it's hard to explain the, it's hard to explain knowing that this diagnosis that put so much fear into me has been able to be turned into something that's saving people's lives. And that's all I wanted. Where did you find the strength to turn the fear that you were going through, the personal battle for your own life, to speak out and to share your story so that it can save other lives? I think the strength to do that came from not wanting another woman to, to, to go too far without being able to catch something that could take their life.
Just looking at other women in the world and my friends and, and feeling this connection with so many women, you know, women who I'll never meet, women who I'll never know, but knowing that I don't want anyone to get to a place where it's too late. You know, I know how lucky I am that I was given the opportunity to fight. So many women in my position get this diagnosis and there is no path forward. There is no course of action.
There's just, there's just like counting days and spending time with their family. And I just want more women to have the opportunity to fight and to have a, a path forward. And early detection does that. And this test did it for me.
Olivia, talk to me about your decision to speak out publicly, to share your story, because initially you wanted to keep it private, as so many women do. But ultimately you did share your story with the rest of the world. Why? I was looking back on photos and videos with my son who was just like over a year at the time that I was diagnosed and he was laughing and I was laughing and it hit me that at that moment I had cancer and didn't know about it because I had just had a clear mammogram at that point, a clear ultrasound.
So I, I thought at the time, I'm good. I check it off my list and I'll see you again next year. And the fact that I had cancer, but had no idea and the fact that I have a fast moving, very aggressive cancer, I don't know how long it would have taken and what stage it would have gotten to and how big it would have grown. And if it, if it could make it into my lymph nodes by the time that we found out, um, it just, it hit me so hard.
I just had this, this pit in my stomach that there are other women out there who are also going through their life with cancer, not knowing it. But if they could take this test and find out that their score was above 20% and that they need to start getting yearly MRIs and actually at that point, even if they had a clear mammogram and clear ultrasound that they should tell their doctors, Hey, I scored this. And can you go, you know, go send me to an MRI that that could save their lives. And it just became a mission.
I just knew at that point that that's something that I had to do and that I wanted to get into every woman's consciousness that from then on for the rest of their lives and that their children do it and when their daughters or nieces or granddaughters go to get their first pap smear at however old that they are at that point, that they also talk to the doctor about their lifetime risk assessment score. What is your message to women who are watching this right now? A lot of them who just got a mammogram and feel like they don't have to worry about the risk of cancer. I would say to not live with the fear of having cancer, to, to, to feel a lot of comfort that the mammogram is clear because the mammogram is a, is an important test and it has saved countless lives.
But there's just this one extra thing that you can do. That's free. It's online. It takes just minutes to, to do.
And if you get a score above 20%, just tell your doctor that you want an MRI. And you know, there's a good chance it's going to be clear, but it's just so important to, to stay on top of it. And you know, um, there was, there's a Superbowl commercial that was about breast cancer this last Superbowl. And they had approached me to be in it.
And my first thought was, this is great. This is fantastic. This is such a huge stage that they're taking time to make a commercial about breast cancer and early detection. This is so powerful.
And I'm so grateful. And I do believe that there was a good intention behind it. And I was like on the one yard line for completing the deal and doing all that, you know, all the stuff that happens behind Deciding over where the funding goes, they have mothers. They have sisters.
They have daughters. They have wives. They have girlfriends. You know, don't you want to save them too?
Don't you want to help them too? And if they were talking money, if it's all about money, we can talk money too. It takes so much less money to educate women on their options, to create options for women to have the best healthcare possible. And that's going to save you a lot of money.
So just help us help ourselves. That's all we're asking for. We're just asking that you care enough about us to put money where we need it. As someone who is a mom, Olivia, and you had a precious little boy when you were diagnosed with cancer, how much was your son a driving force behind your ability to fight cancer head on?
He's everything to me. He is the happiest little boy. You know, when he was born, he smiled, but in the hospital, that day, like within 10 minutes, I have a picture of him in utero, smiling. Like he is just the happiest, sweetest little boy.
And I just couldn't, I couldn't stomach the idea of him not having me in his life and what that would do. And as much as his dad would be there to take care of him and as much love would be in his life, like that's a, that's an internal scar that will be with him forever. And I just was like, no, I'm gonna be here and you're going to have an amazing life and I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna have an amazing life. And he was just everything that I, I needed to, to forge through.
Because of your cancer battle, you went into surgical menopause. You decided to have a hysterectomy. Talk about that decision, the weight of it, how you and your husband, John Mulaney decided to make what, what I can only imagine was one of the most difficult decisions. Yeah, that was a big decision.
First, going through a double mastectomy, I didn't truly understand what would happen emotionally. I was told that sometimes women have a hard time, you know, when they have to have their breasts removed. And I just, I never connected my breasts with my femininity. I didn't worry about not feeling like a woman anymore.
And I did have a lot of shock when I saw my breasts for the first time. They were, I hadn't done the implants yet and I was in this, these extenders that just hold the shape and let me heal. And those can make your breasts look like, like almost like squared off. And I just, it was shocking for me.
But it wasn't until I started talking about the possibility of removing my ovaries and removing my fallopian tubes and my uterus and that I started to feeling more despair and feeling like, like, well, that means I won't be able to carry again. And I was already told I shouldn't carry and that my doctor would strongly discourage it, but obviously it's my body, my choice. But having my uterus removed fully, I knew that that meant I was closing a door and locking it. But my first drug that I had to take was this thing called Lupron.
It's a monthly shot and it was debilitating. It was exhausting. I was in bed, tired all day long. I mean, all day long.
I would get out of bed and within a few minutes, have to go back in. And my son was coming in to play with me. And, you know, that's when we broke our iPad rule and said, okay, you can lie in bed and watch iPad with me. And I just, I couldn't do it.
And so I thought about what this medicine was doing and it was shutting down the hormone production in my ovaries. So I went to my oncologist and said, can, can we just take them out? And she said, that is an option. And I said, and while we're at it, can we just take out my uterus and my fallopian tubes because I want it to be one last place where cancer can show up.
Let me just like mitigate my, my chances of recurrence. And so that's, that was, so that was the decision. I just, it was, it was a necessity for me to, to be there for my child and to be up and happy and have the energy. What was that moment like for you, Olivia, when you realized you would not be able to carry a second child?
It's devastating. It's, I love being pregnant. I loved it. And gosh, if there's nothing like being pregnant for the first time, like your body is changing and there is this connection with your baby inside.
And I mean, when you first find out you're pregnant, you're in the doctor's office and it's on this monitor and it's the embryo so tiny and you go from watching it be so tiny to all of a sudden seeing a head form. And then there's fingers and toes and you've just been there for every step of the way. And it's, it's truly magical. And so first I was like, oh, I won't be able to experience that.
But that was so small in my worry that the, the worry that came up very quickly was how do I find me in the world? How can I find a mother who will love my child as much as I will love my child? How will I find a mother who will be thoughtful about the things she's putting into her body or the interactions she's having with people or the stress? And will she be in an unhealthy relationship?
Will she be fighting with her partner a lot? Will her children cause her stress? Is she kind? And that stayed with me for a long time.
I was just so, so worried. You, like me, and I had different reasons, but I also couldn't carry children. And so you decided to go the surrogacy route, which I did as well. And I know that that decision takes a long time to reach.
Why did you ultimately decide that you wanted to work with a gestational carrier? Having our daughter meant so much to us. We knew that we weren't done growing our family. We really wanted this little girl to be in the world and we needed her to be part of our family.
And that was my option. There was no other option for us. And I just, I just believed that I would find someone so kind and so warm and so loving and who had this calling in life. And so not having the option was, was the thing that got me through it.
If we wanted to have her in the world, which we desperately did, then this was going to be my option. And I would not let my fear. I would not let my concerns and my worries stop my daughter from having a chance to be in this world. Like that's what I have to do as a mother is to be selfless and to put my children first.
And that was the first step was putting my fear aside. How did you do that? Your fear and what a lot of people feel is still stigmas about surrogacy that exist. You know, I didn't really know that there was a real stigma to it.
I mean, I've heard people talk about it and you know, you hear about it in the news and some people get really upset about it, but you kind of move on. But then it wasn't until around that same time, there was a really big conversation because there was like laws being passed right here in New York and people think of New York as the same way they think of California. It's really progressive and everyone is liberal and, and they really believe in, you know, your body, your choice. And that would go for the surrogate as well.
And I was shocked that there were people fighting against it. There were liberals fighting against allowing surrogacy to happen in New York. And there were people who were having to, one of my friends had to have a surrogate all the way in Ohio and then to get up and move her family and pause her career to go be there for the last month, just in case the, the baby came early. And again, these are sacrifices that we are happy to make, but not everyone is in that position to, to take that time off of work and to go do that.
And I truly didn't understand the depths of the stigma until I had started researching things more and talking to more people about it and saying like, you know, are you going to talk about using a surrogate? Like, then you've got to hide yourself so that people don't know that you're not pregnant. And I thought, why would I, why would I do that? Like I didn't understand there was a stigma.
And I will tell you that since coming out and telling people about using a gestational surrogate, there has only been love. There's only been love that I have received and people have been so happy for us and so happy to see my squishy, chunky little baby girl out in the world. She is the chunkiest, cutest, happiest baby, just like my son. So happy.
And there has only been really amazing consideration and understanding. And I think it's, I do think it's because the, my willing to be, I do think it was because my willingness to be so open about cancer allowed people to, to know that this wasn't a journey and a decision I took lightly. And all I wanted was to have my baby girl in the world. And there was a lot of other women who gone through this like yourself, you know, there's this connection.
I've been able to connect with so many women that, that has really enriched my life and healed my heart in so many ways. And meeting with the women who, who have gone through surrogacy, I think we have, we have walked the same walk. We've had some of the same concerns and fears, and there's this, this bond that we have. And talking about it publicly was very The thing that I have heard the most is that people who are against surrogacy feel that people are using and taking advantage of women and their bodies to do something selfish, which they think is to bring a child into the world.
And then there's the idea too that, well, if you can't carry a child, that means that you shouldn't be having a child. And I would just like people to know that there are so many people who find this to be a calling for themselves and love being pregnant and really wanna give this gift to another couple. When I was going through the applications, there was only two applications they brought to me, and one said that she really wanted to help a family with a mother going through cancer. That was very specifically noted.
And I just felt like this is somebody who really understands what I'm going through and understands what it must be like to be told you can't carry your child. And she wanted to give that gift to me. So this is not unusual for people who choose to be surrogates. And I would like more people to understand that these are other people's personal choices.
These are their choices that they're making. And at the end of the day, it's to bring a baby into the world. They're so innocent and they're so sweet. And it's just all love.
And I think that people should understand, or I'd like people to understand that they really don't understand the reasons and the morals and the life choices that somebody else is making that has nothing to do with you. As you are welcoming the blessing of being a mom of two, you also are having a wonderful moment in your professional career, starring in the series, Your Friends and Neighbors with Jon Hamm. And your character is strong and bold and complicated and beautiful and intriguing. But you went back to acting after five years.
Why did you make that decision? What has this experience been like for you to be a part of a show that's caught on so much? So 2020, there's COVID. 2021, I'm pregnant.
2022, I have very extreme postpartum anxiety. On a scale of 1 to 10, I put it at 100. It was so difficult for me to put on anything besides sweats and a flannel because I felt like I was fighting for my life every day. And I have to say that I'm so grateful that I didn't have any thoughts of self-harm or harming anyone else.
And I have so much love and compassion for women who are dealing with postpartum because there isn't enough understanding out there. There's such a judgment on women who are going through this and some of the extreme things that they end up doing. It is sometimes and a lot of times out of our control. And it is out of our control.
Our hormones just completely deplete. You're carrying a baby. We are growing a baby and your hormones just deplete. I wasn't able to produce a lot of breast milk.
I was able to produce just barely a bottle a day. And that was enough to keep my hormones going. But then my son wasn't able to feed. And, you know, I was able to nurture my child.
So I made a decision to go only to formula. And I didn't know this at the time, but when you stop breastfeeding cold turkey, your hormones just drop and postpartum can come up at that time because there's not like a weaning off period. And it hit me so hard. It was like not long after I'd stopped breastfeeding.
Like I remember I was lying in bed and at 4 a.m. my eyes just pop open and I start inhaling these like labored breaths. And I had anxiety that lasted me all day long. And then the next day, 4 a.m., my eyes pop open and it was like that every day for almost a year.
And it was so difficult and so painful at times and so lonely. Even though my husband was there for me, even though my friends were trying to tell me about different medications they're taking. By the time I started talking about it, I had honestly gone too long and the anxiety had kind of taken over. And even if somebody put medicine right in front of me, I don't think I would have taken it because there was just there was just this anxiety that I just I didn't feel like anything was okay.
I felt like I was I think I felt like I was fighting for my life every day. Although at times I'd be laughing and happy, but there was just this thing in the back of my my mind all the time because my physical body was just my chest was tight and I had labored breathing that whole time. So 2021 was baby. So 2020 was COVID.
2021 was pregnancy. 2022 was postpartum anxiety. 2023, just as the anxiety and postpartum lifted, I get the cancer diagnosis. And so then it takes me into 2024 when we start filming Your Friends and Neighbors.
But before that, I had gotten the call from my agent and she she said, look, I know that you've told us that you are going to take a step back and that you don't want to work anymore. And I was very clear. I called them and I said, I just want you guys to know I'm done acting. I think I'd like to go behind the camera.
I just would like to produce or edit. Not that I didn't realize that's a lot of work, too. I just I didn't want to be so vulnerable in front of the camera anymore and having to do press and to do anything where I was putting myself out there because that just felt exhausting. So you didn't think you were gonna go back to acting.
Then you get this call to do Your Friends and Neighbors. It's now a hit show on Apple TV. What does it feel like to be acting again and to have this vibrant, strong, incredible role? Thank you for saying that.
It's incredible. You can never know when you create anything, if people are gonna like it or hate it or love it and whether it's gonna hit this moment in pop culture where people are all watching it and talking about it. And when it happens, it's so exciting. And I get so many messages from friends in our business who are like asking me, like, who killed Paul?
Who killed Paul? And I was like, you have to wait till the finale. You can't say it here. Yeah, well, it aired.
But for those who haven't seen it, for those who haven't seen it, thank you. No spoilers. But it's just there was so much. I, for me personally, taking on this this job was a big decision.
It meant stepping away from my children and and wondering if I had the energy to do this and whether I could really, could really put my mind around something that I had already walked away from in my mind. And the script was just so great. The script was so fantastic. And I it was a role that I hadn't played before.
And I just, I wanted to, to really give it everything I had. When I read the script, I was like, I gotta do this. When you think about where you are right now, two beautiful children, this incredible role that has energized and excited so many people all across the country. What do you think when you think back to the journey you traveled to get here?
It's unbelievable to me at times. Like I, we were doing this event in LA and it was like myself and Jon Hamm and Amanda Peet and our creator Jonathan Tropper. And I was like, oh my gosh, this, like, wait, what month is this? This is like, it's been two years since I was being wheeled into into surgery for a double mastectomy.
It's, it's been two years since they told me, hey, there was more cancer. I just, I'm sitting there and I, and I'm in front of this audience with people who have loved the show. And, and it is, it was, it was like, it was, it was unbelievable. I said, I can't, I said to myself, like I cannot believe that I'm sitting here right now.
Like with, with this amazing cast and this creator, like in just two years, like there's no way I would have ever thought that. I mean, the fear that I felt in those moments and having to, to, to hold on to so much of it and being so afraid of, of what, what was going to come and having to be stoic. And then now I have this show where I'm able to just completely delve into a character and be open and be vulnerable and, and have all these complex nuances. I, it was just unbelievable.
You are such a fighter, Olivia. Do you see yourself as an advocate? Hmm. Advocate's another word that I kind of, I think is, I think it's, I know by the definition, it's the accurate word, but I feel like it's, it's thrown around a lot.
And for people who, who don't, you know, I think there is like people who advocate and then there are like advocates. And to me, I think of myself as someone who advocates for women and it has become my mission in life. There's just a few things on my, my purpose list, which is to be a great mother, to be a great wife, to be a great sister and friend, and to help as many women in the world know about the lifetime risk assessment test. I never really had like that kind of purpose in life.
I was really happy. I wanted to be an actor and I became an actor and I just wanted to work on things that I really enjoyed and have fun and take risks, but I had no other goal. It was not, there was no other thing. It wasn't like I want to take the career to this place.
I just had, I just wanted to live a nice life and be happy. And now I have a very purpose mission in life. And just finally, Olivia, what is