Julia Louis-Dreyfus "howled with laughter" after being diagnosed with cancer

Julia told the Los Angeles Times: "I howled with laughter, which turned into hysterical crying. I mean, it's a blow. And an absurd one at that, given the timing."

Julia says that the cancer has made see how precious life is and she knows how lucky she is to have survived it.

She said: "If you're trying to look at the positive, I feel that way. I'd rather not have gone through it. But I became keenly aware of how precious this life is — my life, life in general. I've walked through that.

"If someone had said to me, 'You're going to have chemotherapy,' I'd be like, 'What?' It's every cliché you've ever heard. 'Wait. That doesn't happen to me. It happens to other people.' And then it happens to you. And you get through it, if you're lucky. In my case, I did. I've known people who haven't, so I'm really happy I did. Really happy.

"It comes and goes. But once you've walked through a life-threatening illness, there's this little nagging thing with you all the time. That fear doesn't completely go away because you've been face to face with it.

"But you know what? We walk through our lives so oblivious to the fact that our lives are going to end. We really don't consider that. Ever. Almost ever. Maybe that's a good thing, to a certain extent. But it's a cold, hard fact, and it is a strange thing to reconcile."

Julia and her husband Brad Hall have been married for 32 years and the actress finds it hard to believe as she still only feels like she's in her thirties.

She said: "It's also a reminder of mortality. It's so strange. Like when you hit that number of anniversary, it feels like something old people would say. But I guess I'm old. I sure don't think of myself as that. I'm 58. But I feel like I'm about 38."