The acclaimed star, known for playing Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter films series and starring the 2014 MR Turner movie, said the idea of leaving his family Beind was “unbearable.”
Speaking to Saga magazine, the actor spoke about his diagnosis of leukemia, which he recovered in 1996, and the “horror” of what would die to his family.
He told Pa: “I was 39 years old and we had three children, and from nowhere I was diagnosed with a Threating disease called myeloid leukemia. When they tolerated her, I put my knees and asked God to lose me for my family.
February 27: Happy birthday, Timothy Spall! He played Peter Pettigrew, also known as Wortail, in Harry Potter’s films. pic.twitter.com/n8f4xxvopx
– Harry Potter Universe (@hotteruniverse) February 28, 2025
“There was a time when they thought I could not do it. The only really unbearable thing was what my family would do if it would be there to take care of them, and that was my job as a husband and father.
“The pain and horror of what would die to the people I loved was the only unbearable side. The rest I could take.
“One day, between the treatments, the doctors had performed tests and thought he had fallen. A lot of fungal things had grown in my lung. I was about to go to have full body radiation and a bone marrow in my things, things, things, falls, things, things, things, things, things, things, things, things, things, things, that I did everything.
Spall is married to the writer Shane Spall and has three children called Rafe, Pascale and Mercedes.
He added: “We have bone for 44 years and we are inseparable. They joined the hip. We got married four months after us. I think there is much to say to marry some that you do not know. I was in love with it.
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The English actor won the BAFTA for the main actor in 2024 for his role as Peter Farquhar in the True Crime series, the sixth commandment, surpassing the succession star Brian Cox.
Hello, he also portrayed the Duke of Norfolk in the successful Wolf Hall series of the BBC series, after the life of Thomas Cromwell, the main advisor of Henry VIII.
Spall said: “I thought it was a Ahoo-in for Brian Cox because the succession was such a popular show, and it was brilliant.
“It was my sixth nomination to Bafta, and I got used to making the ‘smile’, so I thought it was going to be another of those.
“When I won it, it surprised me genuinely.”
