"Kids In the Hall" Funnyman Scott Thompson Staring Down Cancer with a Quip and a Smile

He may have been crushing your head, but cancer can't crush his spirit.

We just learned that Scott Thompson, out and proud funnyman, has “large B-cell, non-Hodgkins gastric lymphoma.” But he’s not letting it get him down.

“What? I won the lymphoma? I had no idea I was even nominated,” jokes Scott Thompson, in an interview with Canadian magazine Macleans.

Despite the illness, he’s managed to fit treating the disease in around filming the Kids In the Hall reunion, which is morbidly called Death Comes to Town. He did the chemo before filming, and then he did the radiation. There’s been some fallout, weakening his body, and he tore a muscle shooting the miniseries.

Still, it hasn’t affected his sense of humor. He’s planning on turning the experience of his diagnosis and treatment into a one-man show, once he’s got his strength back. He understands that’s his place in the world, helping people heal through laughter, whether it’s wounds of the spirit, like he did with coming out, or now, of the body. “My job is to bring light into the darkness — and gays are fine, they don’t need me anymore. I’m moving on to a new group, cancer people.”

His doctor says he’s cancer free now, but he’s still got some weight to put on, maybe some energy to recover. But he’s joking, and laughter, after all is the best medicine.

The full interview can be found at MacLeans.