Olivia Munn feels as if she has reached ‘the other side' in life after health fight
Olivia Munn has reached 'the other side' in her life after a series of health traumas.
The 'Your Friends and Neighbours' actress, 44, endured a string of brutal surgeries after a cancer diagnosis upended her life, and she has now spoken about how she feels as if she has been given a second chance at enjoying motherhood and her career.
She told People: 'I'm so grateful to be on the other side. Everything feels easy in a way.
'I feel so at peace. If I can stay happy and healthy, then I just want to sail into the rest of my life.'
The actress has three-year-old son Malcolm with comedian and actor John Mulaney, 42, and says handling him puts her into 'survival' mode at times when he unleashes tantrums.
Olivia was diagnosed in April 2023 with luminal B breast cancer – a fast-growing, hormone-driven form of the disease – just months after recovering from postpartum anxiety following Malcolm's birth.
She said about the experience: 'It was a whole other perspective, because I had been struggling with life in postpartum, and now I was so desperate to stay alive.
'From the moment I received my diagnosis, it just became a march forward.'
She underwent a series of major medical interventions, including a double mastectomy, hysterectomy and ovary removal – and began IVF treatment on a specialised protocol for cancer patients.
She and John were able to retrieve and fertilise seven eggs.
Olivia added: 'I said, 'I really don't think I'll be okay unless we get two girl embryos. I know this puts me at risk, but I just need you to support me'.
'He said, 'Whatever you need'.'
That same day, they learned they had two healthy female embryos.
In September 2024, the couple had their daughter Méi via surrogate.
Olivia said: 'We were so lucky to find someone so kind who we bonded with so much.'
She and John couple married in July that year and said she felt as if she recently needed to get back to acting to 'energise' herself.
Olivia is now filming season two of 'Your Friends and Neighbours' in New York, commuting regularly back to California, where John is raising the children and taping his Netflix variety show 'Everybody's Live'.
She added: 'It's a dance right now with our schedules.
'We make it work simply because we have the mindset that it's a blessing.'
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So I try not to look at things through a wide-angle lens, you know? And sometimes I watch the final product of things and find that 'oh wow, he's an entirely different person to how I had imagined him', because I tend to approach it from a moment to moment basis, and react to the circumstances he's in, and try to play to each moment truthfully, and then that paints a bigger picture of this character's life during the time period on screen. The only thing you have to be mindful of, I guess, is to think of the journey of the character throughout the show, but the specificity of each moment we see creates the 'character', I think. Charlie Vickers in 'The Survivors' | Image: Netflix Beyond being able to come back to Australia, what was the highlight of the filming process for The Survivors? There were so many. I loved being able to be in a really special place, Tasmania, that I'd never been to, with a whole bunch of amazing actors and creatives. 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