Edward James Olmos reveals he had throat cancer: 'It was an experience that changed me'

Edward James Olmos is opening up about his recent throat cancer diagnosis.

The 76-year-old Miami Vice and Battlestar Galactica star revealed that he finished chemotherapy late last year after an experience with the "very strong disease."

"This would be the first time publicly I'll be coming out and saying it, but I had throat cancer," Olmos said in an interview this week for the podcast Mando & Friends. "I just finished getting through it. December 20 was my last radiation. The week before, I'd finished my chemo and [for] months and months I was on radiation and chemo as it attacked my throat."

Olmos said he consulted with five doctors before the treatment, with them warning him, "'There's only one thing we have to tell you: We do not know what you're gonna sound like.'"

"I said, 'What?'" the Mayans M.C. actor recalled.

"'We're shooting your vocal cords. We're shooting your throat. Where you eat, where you swallow, where you talk, breathe, everything goes through here,'" Olmos explained. "A lot of my friends have passed because of this."

Recovery "took a lot" out of Olmos, who lost 55 pounds during his treatment. "There were times in the months that I was undergoing the treatments that the body gives up," he said. "And I didn't want to take my food through my stomach. They wanted to put tubes in and feed me nutrients because I couldn't swallow. They had to get 2,500 calories into my body every day. That was ridiculous. That was so hard."

Olmos added that he's been working to regain his strength. "I swim a mile a day at least, sometimes two miles a day. Every day, seven days a week," he said. "And then I row and I do weights."

The diagnosis and treatment also caused him to reassess things. "It was an experience that changed me, the understanding of how wonderful this life is," Olmos said. "I've been through some experiences that have gotten me close to death, but that was close."

Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage Edward James Olmos

The Academy Award–nominated actor, beloved for his roles as Martin Castillo on the original Miami Vice and William Adama on Battlestar Galactica, is currently starring on FX's Mayans M.C., which just returned for its fifth and final season.

Watch Olmos' podcast interview above.

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