Stanley Tucci was recovering from cancer treatment while making Searching for Italy

Stanley Tucci struggled to make his food show Searching for Italy as he was still recovering from his cancer treatment.

Last month, The Hunger Games actor revealed he was diagnosed with cancer three years ago after doctors discovered a tumour at the base of his tongue and he had to undergo radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Tucci revealed that he was still recovering from the treatments when he made CNN's food and travel series Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy, which aired earlier this year, and it negatively impacted how he handled the food.

"It was hard because I could taste everything, but I couldn't necessarily swallow," he shared, adding that to eat steak Florentine, he "had to chew it for 10 minutes to get it down my throat" while other times he just "had to get rid of the food".

Despite the challenges, Tucci didn't think twice about saying yes when he was approached about making the show.

"There was no way I wasn't going to make it," he stated. "I've wanted to tell for a long time the story of Italy and the disparate cuisine in every region."

The 60-year-old lost his appetite and his mouth filled with ulcers after three radiation sessions and everything he ate tasted like wet cardboard "slathered with someone's excrement".

And during his recovery, he watched cooking shows to live vicariously through the chefs.

"(It) was weird because even the smell of food then would just make me want to throw up," he admitted. "But I liked watching them. I just wanted to learn more, live vicariously through them. It was a way I was going to have that once again."

Tucci is now in remission and that particular type of cancer is unlikely to return.