It’s amazing how finally getting something you’ve anticipated your entire life can bring about a sense of calm. Or at least that was the case for Toks Olagundoye. “From the second I got it, I was very candid about it,” she says.
“I told everybody because I knew I was going to be low-energy ...
[but also] I feel like it really is so prevalent that it almost needs to be normalized in a way.” The 49-year-old Nigerian-British actress and voiceover artist wasn’t speaking about her breakout turn in Paramount+’s “ Frasier ,” the continuation of the Emmy-winning NBC sitcom that begins its second season on Thursday. Rather, she was speaking about the breast cancer diagnosis she received while going through the casting process for the Kelsey Grammer -starring comedy.
Olagundoye was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a fairly aggressive form of the disease, but one that she says can be stopped if caught early enough. She underwent three lumpectomy surgeries and chemotherapy before starting work on “Frasier” and had a double mastectomy while filming the show’s first season, which premiered in 2023. She knew of several friends and a relative who had received a similar diagnosis, so Olagundoye tests regularly, and admits, “I was so stressed out about getting cancer my whole life that by the time I got it, I was like, ‘OK, cool, let’s fix and get over it.
’” Now she says, “I sort of wish I hadn’t been so stressed out about it.” “As long .