Queen Cleopatra star diagnosed with brain tumour after filming series: ‘I was warned I could die’

Queen Cleopatra star Craig Russell revealed he was diagnosed with a brain tumour after filming the series.

The four-part series from  explores the heritage of Egypt’s last pharaoh who reigned for 21 years between 51 to 30 BC before her death by suicide. 

Welsh actor Craig played Marc Antony (Queen Cleopatra’s lover) in the four-parter, and he explained that he was feeling ‘fit and healthy’ during production but later started to suffer intense migraines.

‘Just before Christmas, I walked into the spare room and I couldn’t ­remember how to get out,’ he recalled.

The 45-year-old was told by a doctor that he was going blind in his left eye, and they discovered he had a tumour the size of a lime in his brain following his MRI scan.

Craig added to : ‘I got a call to say: “We need to get this out ASAP,” it was totally unexpected. I was very teary when I told my wife, Kate – and that they didn’t know if it was cancerous or not.

‘I was warned I could die during the procedure because it was so ­complicated. But if it wasn’t removed, it could cause seizures and strokes,’ he added.

Craig, who shares children Teddy, 8, and Henry, 5, with his wife Kate, underwent the surgery in March, two months before Queen Cleopatra premiered on Netflix.

Two months later, the actor has started to feel more like himself, but will have an MRI scan every six months for the next decade.

Craig expressed his gratitude to his GP and claimed he ‘might not be here now’ if she didn’t send him his brain scan.

The Netflix series faced backlash in the run-up to its premiere after it was revealed Black actress

Last month, lawyer  filed a lawsuit over the casting and claimed the streaming giant was committing a ‘crime’ for portraying Cleopatra as Black.

Addressing the criticism on Steph’s Packed Lunch, the former Casualty star said: ‘It would be naive of me to say that I didn’t expect anything at all, but I didn’t expect the scale of it.

‘And I think it’s distressing for anybody to receive any level of abuse, let alone the scale and the nature of what I’ve received, which is fundamentally racist, all of it.’

Queen Cleopatra is available to stream on Netflix.