Dame Maggie: breast cancer may make me give up theatre

Dame Maggie Smith says her battle with breast cancer has left her too frightened to tread the boards.

The actress, winner of two Oscars, said she may turn her back on theatre after chemotherapy and radiotherapy left her "flattened" with no energy or confidence.

The 74-year-old, who starred in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie and the Harry Potter films, said: "I'm frightened to work in theatre now. I feel very uncertain. I haven't done it for a while."

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Dame Maggie was diagnosed with cancer last year after finding a lump on her breast. "I had been feeling a little rum," she said. "I didn't think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It takes the wind out of your sails, and I don't know what the future holds, if anything."
She said the experience had "very much" changed her. "I think it's the age I was when it happened," she added. "It takes you longer to recover, you are not so resilient."

She made Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince — playing Professor Minerva McGonagall — during her cancer treatment. "I was hairless," Dame Maggie said. "I had no problem getting the wig on. I was like a boiled egg." She plans to "stagger through" the final Harry Potter film, The Deathly Hallows, but said she was not sure what would happen to her career after that.