Shownotes
Actress Toks Olagundoye shares her remarkable journey as a breast cancer survivor while navigating the entertainment industry.
Olagundoye, known for her roles in shows like 'Veep,' 'Castle' and the newly rebooted 'Frasier', opens up about her diagnosis and the critical role that diet and lifestyle have played in her health, emphasizing that she's dairy free and hasn't eaten a mammal in over 30 years.
The discussion also touches on the emotional impact of cancer, not just on the patient but also on their loved ones, particularly how her husband, friends, and co-workers stepped up to assist in her needs.
Her story is a testament to resilience, reminding listeners that while cancer can be a daunting adversary, it also presents opportunities for personal growth and deeper connections with those around us.
The episode concludes with a powerful message about the significance of laughter and joy in the healing process, encapsulated in Alagundoye's wise words, "If laughter is medicine, then I'm heavily medicated."
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Transcripts
I'm Rip Esselstyn and you're listening to the Plan Strong podcast.
Rip Esselstyn:You've seen her on tv shows like Veep, Castle, the Rookie, and many others.
Rip Esselstyn:And now you can see her on the new season of Frasier.
Rip Esselstyn:Can you believe it?
Rip Esselstyn:Frasier.
Rip Esselstyn:Which is now out on Paramount.
Rip Esselstyn:Plus, it's the talented actress toques Olegan Doye.
Rip Esselstyn:Today, she candidly shares her ongoing journey with breast cancer and the impact that diet has played on her recovery.
Rip Esselstyn:It's coming up right after these words from Plantstraw.
Rip Esselstyn:As the leaves are turning, I want to wish you happy October, my cruciferous cousins.
Rip Esselstyn:As you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Rip Esselstyn:And that means that here at the Plant Strong podcast, we're going to be devoting all five episodes on the stories of patients and the latest research and initiatives that promote a whole food plant based diet for the recovery and healing of this disease.
Rip Esselstyn:There is so much science that's swirling around, around this topic, and so I've called upon several experts to parse out the research and equip you with the knowledge and the hope.
Rip Esselstyn:Today, though, I'm honored to introduce you to an actress that is currently starring in the brand new season of Frasier, which debuted September 19 on Paramount.
Rip Esselstyn:Plus, her name is Toques olegandoye.
Rip Esselstyn:She plays Olivia Fitch, the faculty head of the psych department at Harvard University, on this new season of the popular reboot starring everyone's favorite radio host, Kelsey Grammer.
Rip Esselstyn:Now, in addition to Frasier and other starring roles in television shows like Castle and Veep, Toques is also a breast cancer survivor.
Rip Esselstyn:She's undergone six surgeries to treat her cancer along with chemotherapy treatments.
Rip Esselstyn:Two of her surgeries even took place when she was filming season one of Fraser.
Rip Esselstyn:Here's the thing, Toques is primarily whole food plant based.
Rip Esselstyn:She hasn't eaten mammals for over 30 years and gave up dairy almost 20 years ago.
Rip Esselstyn:But because there is a lot of cancer in her family, she remained diligent about all of her screenings, which thankfully is what caught her aggressive triple negative breast cancer.
Rip Esselstyn:Shes honest and candid about her story because as she says, she wants to be a service to others and raise awareness about early detections.
Rip Esselstyn:She also wants to be a source of hope and inspiration, which is why she wanted to talk so openly about her diagnosis.
Rip Esselstyn:And im super grateful for that.
Rip Esselstyn:So please welcome to the Plan Strong podcast.
Rip Esselstyn:Toques olegantoye today, joining me on the Plantstrom podcast, I have toks Alagundoye.
Rip Esselstyn:Welcome to the show.
Rip Esselstyn:It is so wonderful to meet you yes, likewise.
Toques Alagundoye:Thank you for having me.
Rip Esselstyn:Absolutely.
Rip Esselstyn:Now, am I correct?
Rip Esselstyn:Was yesterday a big day for you?
Toques Alagundoye:It was.
Toques Alagundoye:It was my 49th birthday.
Rip Esselstyn:49Th birthday.
Rip Esselstyn:I love it.
Rip Esselstyn:It was my sister's 59th birthday yesterday.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, my God.
Toques Alagundoye:That's amazing.
Toques Alagundoye:It's a very popular birthday.
Toques Alagundoye:I think it's like one in the top.
Toques Alagundoye:Top three of the most popular birthday.
Toques Alagundoye:He's on.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:I had an old girlfriend that was summer 16th.
Rip Esselstyn:And you're September 16, my sister.
Rip Esselstyn:That's about as far as I know, but nice.
Toques Alagundoye:Hey, listen, it's pretty good.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Now you.
Rip Esselstyn:So you were running a little bit late today, and you were at the doctor's appointment.
Rip Esselstyn:And the good news is, what did everything reveal today?
Toques Alagundoye:That I seem to be doing well on my way to, you know, being able to say that I'm fully in remission from breast cancer.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Had a checkup.
Toques Alagundoye:It's.
Toques Alagundoye:I have several different kinds of checkups, but this one is with my oncologist, and she sort of.
Toques Alagundoye:I had a double mastectomy.
Toques Alagundoye:So she kind of checks the area, checks my blood levels and everything.
Toques Alagundoye:And everything looked good, but my calcium is a little high.
Toques Alagundoye:Who knew that was a problem?
Toques Alagundoye:So I have to have some extra scans and stuff today.
Toques Alagundoye:And they were booking those into the computer.
Toques Alagundoye:So I was like, well, what I'd.
Rip Esselstyn:Love to do with you, if you're open to it, is I'd love to dive into your breast cancer.
Rip Esselstyn:The diagnosis, how you handled having a mastectomy and finding out that you had breast cancer.
Rip Esselstyn:And I know you had about six surgeries and chemotherapy therapy, so I think our audience would love to hear about your experience with that.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Also would love to talk about your role in Frasier.
Rip Esselstyn:That is super exciting.
Rip Esselstyn:And Olivia Finch.
Rip Esselstyn:Right.
Rip Esselstyn:Has on her way.
Rip Esselstyn:For starters, though, I just.
Rip Esselstyn:I think it's.
Rip Esselstyn:I'd love for people to kind of just get a feel for.
Rip Esselstyn:For you, Toques.
Rip Esselstyn:And where does that name, toques come from?
Rip Esselstyn:Because I can tell you that I've never heard of it before.
Rip Esselstyn:I bet nobody that's a listener has ever heard of it before.
Toques Alagundoye:Not unless they're nigerian, probably, or Mexican.
Toques Alagundoye:There's like a chain of, like, fast food stores in Mexico called toques.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And no, I'm not named after them.
Toques Alagundoye:Although, listen, maybe I've never had it.
Toques Alagundoye:It might be the most delicious thing in the world.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't know.
Toques Alagundoye:But I'm from Nigeria, born and raised.
Toques Alagundoye:My dad's nigerian.
Toques Alagundoye:And Toques is short for Olato Kumbo.
Toques Alagundoye:And it's usually given to people not born in Nigeria, so a lot of Nigerians think that I'm not born or raised there, that I was.
Toques Alagundoye:It's a little joke that my parents thought was funny because my mum is norwegian, and so that, you know, I'm a gift from across the seas in that way, so.
Rip Esselstyn:Oh, well, that's.
Rip Esselstyn:That's beautiful.
Rip Esselstyn:What?
Rip Esselstyn:I mean, wow.
Rip Esselstyn:If I was a parent, I would love to say, a gift from across the seas.
Rip Esselstyn:How are you doing today?
Rip Esselstyn:And.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, exactly.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:As a parent, have you ever been to Norway?
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, yes, absolutely.
Toques Alagundoye:My mum's whole family is there, and we would go once or twice a year my whole childhood, and I still go about once a year.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, it's my favorite place in the entire world.
Toques Alagundoye:It's incredibly relaxing.
Toques Alagundoye:It's the one place I feel truly safe.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, being biracial, you can be othered a lot by family.
Toques Alagundoye:And it's like the.
Toques Alagundoye:It's the place that I feel most in tune with my family.
Rip Esselstyn:I just went to Norway for spring break with my family.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh.
Rip Esselstyn:And I.
Toques Alagundoye:We.
Rip Esselstyn:We flew into, we flew into Bergen, and then we went up on, I mean, and we stayed right on the, I think, norwegian sea somewhere.
Rip Esselstyn:It was.
Rip Esselstyn:It was freaky.
Rip Esselstyn:It was freaky.
Rip Esselstyn:The mountains, the lack of humanity, the lack of traffic.
Rip Esselstyn:I was like, we got to go back ASAP.
Toques Alagundoye:Absolutely.
Toques Alagundoye:It's.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, it is.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just one of the most wonderful places in the entire world.
Toques Alagundoye:It gives you a really good idea of what earth is supposed to look like and how we're supposed to treat the earth and each other.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, it's very much so.
Rip Esselstyn:Very much so.
Rip Esselstyn:And it seemed to me that Norwegians, for the most part, were doing pretty well.
Rip Esselstyn:I mean, I think it's a wealthy company.
Rip Esselstyn:I'm a wealthy company, a wealthy country.
Rip Esselstyn:I think it's.
Rip Esselstyn:What is it, oil and gas that.
Toques Alagundoye:Has allowed it to do so well, yes, absolutely.
Toques Alagundoye:And they have so much money because of it that, I mean, they're able to be a socialist country that really does provide everything for their people, and they take in a lot of immigrants because they want to literally share the wealth.
Rip Esselstyn:Where did you grow up?
Rip Esselstyn:Did you grow up in the states or Nigeria or.
Toques Alagundoye:Where I grew up mainly in Nigeria.
Toques Alagundoye:When I was three and four, we lived in England, and in, I moved around a lot, but was in Nigeria for the most part.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, we'd go to Norway a couple times a year.
Toques Alagundoye:I would go from, like, ages of seven to 13 every summer.
Toques Alagundoye:I would spend a big chunk of the summer in Switzerland, going to school there to prep me for boarding school in England, which I went to for secondary school, for high school.
Toques Alagundoye:And we always spent a big chunk of time in England, too, in the summer.
Toques Alagundoye:So those were my key places that I grew up.
Toques Alagundoye:But home base was Nigeria.
Rip Esselstyn:Wow.
Rip Esselstyn:It was your.
Rip Esselstyn:I mean, you moved around a lot.
Rip Esselstyn:Was your father in the military or something or what?
Toques Alagundoye:A lot.
Toques Alagundoye:No, I think it's just simply by virtue of having family everywhere and being a british colony, you know, in Nigeria, you know, a fairly new country, especially when I was born, and everything there is very british.
Toques Alagundoye:And so it's kind of where everybody ended up at that time.
Toques Alagundoye:And my dad was a banker when we lived in England, it was because of his job, and, yeah, spent time in Norway because of my family.
Toques Alagundoye:Switzerland was because my dad wanted me to speak fluent French.
Toques Alagundoye:And.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, but it was really just, you know, that tons of Nigerians, especially in my generation, spent time in England.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:And how's your French?
Rip Esselstyn:Do you speak fluent French?
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, I did.
Toques Alagundoye:I did once upon a time.
Toques Alagundoye:I've lived here for a very long time and have had no reason to use it.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, if you plopped me in the middle of a french speaking country, I'd be absolutely fine.
Toques Alagundoye:But.
Toques Alagundoye:But if you wanted to conduct an interview with me in French, I would politely decline.
Rip Esselstyn:Right, right.
Rip Esselstyn:The only thing that I.
Rip Esselstyn:My parents taught me in French, and this is when we were, like, when we.
Rip Esselstyn:We would go on ski trips and we'd be going up the chairlift, and they taught us to say, qui au coupe la fromage?
Rip Esselstyn:Who cut cheese.
Rip Esselstyn:Right?
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Of all things.
Rip Esselstyn:Of all things.
Toques Alagundoye:Say something in French.
Rip Esselstyn:Exactly.
Rip Esselstyn:When.
Rip Esselstyn:When did you know that you wanted to be an actress?
Toques Alagundoye:Gosh, not until quite late.
Toques Alagundoye:I was always going to be a doctor.
Toques Alagundoye:And then when I was applying to schools, I started having this recurring nightmare that I killed someone during my internship.
Toques Alagundoye:And it was an actual, like, it was a huge fear of mine.
Toques Alagundoye:So I decided I did apply to some very good schools with pre med programs, and I got in, and then I applied to other places where I would be able to do pre law.
Toques Alagundoye:And at the end of the day, I picked to go to a university where I could do pre law, but I still wanted to do theater, which I had started in high school.
Toques Alagundoye:That was the first time I did it.
Toques Alagundoye:I just thought, oh, this will be fun.
Toques Alagundoye:And the principal of the school and the head of the drama department thought that I was very talented, and so they asked me to partake in a program that they had there, which was a baccalaureate program.
Toques Alagundoye:It was a really amazing theatre program.
Toques Alagundoye:And so I did, and I really enjoyed it, and I always ended up in all the plays and things that we did.
Toques Alagundoye:And then in college, I took one theatre class my first semester, and it happened to be a.
Toques Alagundoye:Adjacent to the auditorium.
Toques Alagundoye:And I walked out onto the auditorium, the first class, and I kind of looked out in there, and I thought, God, I've got to do this forever.
Toques Alagundoye:I have to.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, so I changed my major, and my.
Toques Alagundoye:I thought my parents were going to disown me, basically, but instead they said, listen, just do your best.
Toques Alagundoye:Have a plan b, you know, don't plan to be an actor.
Toques Alagundoye:Plan to work, you know, in the profession.
Toques Alagundoye:In a way you can make money.
Toques Alagundoye:So my trajectory was always that I was going to work in a, you know, theater somewhere in New York and then do regional theater on the side, and I got lucky enough to actually be an actor and pay my bills that way, so.
Rip Esselstyn:Sure have.
Rip Esselstyn:You sure have.
Rip Esselstyn:I would hope that it's exceeded all of your expectations.
Toques Alagundoye:Absolutely.
Toques Alagundoye:100%.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:And when did you.
Rip Esselstyn:When did you land your first, let's say, role?
Rip Esselstyn:Were you like, yeah, I am an actress.
Toques Alagundoye:God, that's difficult to say.
Toques Alagundoye:That's difficult to say because I feel like every time I land a new role, I say that because every time I'm like, oh, God.
Toques Alagundoye:The first time was I had a professor at UMass who came to me and said, pbs is doing this series, and they need a host.
Toques Alagundoye:And I'm just.
Toques Alagundoye:They're sending this out for us to send students, and I'm just gonna send you because you're gonna book it.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, okay, he was right.
Toques Alagundoye:I did, and I made a full $1,000, which was more money than I'd ever seen or made in my entire life.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, I'm rich.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, I have to say that's probably the first time, you know, getting paid to be.
Toques Alagundoye:This is my first time doing television, and, you know, it was all me and a camera and a director and a script, and, yeah, I had.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, I love what I do.
Toques Alagundoye:I always have fun, and every single time, it's a new experience, and every single time, I feel like I'm at a different level.
Toques Alagundoye:So.
Rip Esselstyn:So when you.
Rip Esselstyn:When you.
Rip Esselstyn:When you hear that you got that role, you got that part, and you.
Rip Esselstyn:I just got $1,000 to, you know, be the moderate, whatever it was on PBS, what's the first.
Rip Esselstyn:Who's the first person you pick up the phone and call?
Toques Alagundoye:It was my mom.
Rip Esselstyn:Your mom?
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Nice.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Who's, like, always like, yeah, of course they cost you.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, she's not.
Toques Alagundoye:She's never like, my parents are never excited.
Toques Alagundoye:They're like, congratulations.
Toques Alagundoye:They kind of, like, expect me to excel.
Toques Alagundoye:So I'm like, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:All right.
Rip Esselstyn:And then what are some of the shows that you've been on that the audience members might.
Rip Esselstyn:Might know or recognize you from?
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, okay.
Toques Alagundoye:So I was a series regular on the show Castle.
Toques Alagundoye:They brought me in in the final season to be Castle's partner.
Toques Alagundoye:I was on the show veep.
Toques Alagundoye:I actually played the Kamala Harris character on veep.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:I I've done, like, you know, like, guest roles on shows like NCIS and Law and order and, you know, those sorts of things.
Toques Alagundoye:I did a season of the rookie because it's the same guys who do Castle, so they, like, they wrote a role for me and said, do you want to come play?
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely.
Toques Alagundoye:I.
Toques Alagundoye:What else?
Rip Esselstyn:What about the neighbours?
Toques Alagundoye:Obviously, I mean, the neighbours is, like, one of my favorite, but unfortunately, not a lot of people watched it, but.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Toques Alagundoye:But that was, I mean, one of my favorites of all time.
Toques Alagundoye:I have been fortunate enough to have jobs that have really fulfilled my dreams.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, the neighbors, I got to do so much stuff on the neighbors.
Toques Alagundoye:It was so much fun.
Toques Alagundoye:And I got to do a lot of, like, kind of, you know, I got to do all my accents and, like, you know, be weird and wacky.
Toques Alagundoye:And on castle, I got to fulfill my dreams of doing my, all my own stunt.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, like, everything that I've done has, like, brought a new thing.
Toques Alagundoye:I, you know, I got to be on shameless, which is one of my favorite shows of all time.
Toques Alagundoye:Veep was one of my favorite shows of all time, and they're always a new challenge, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, it's.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't know.
Toques Alagundoye:I've been really lucky in the world of acting.
Rip Esselstyn:You've been.
Rip Esselstyn:You've kind of.
Rip Esselstyn:You're checking off the boxes with your bucket list.
Toques Alagundoye:I am.
Toques Alagundoye:I am.
Toques Alagundoye:And I always wanted to do voiceover work, and I done a lot of that.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, I.
Toques Alagundoye:What's.
Rip Esselstyn:What's that like?
Toques Alagundoye:It's.
Toques Alagundoye:It's a little surreal.
Toques Alagundoye:It depends on what show.
Toques Alagundoye:So, like, if I'm doing, like, family guy, I do.
Toques Alagundoye:So I do family guy.
Toques Alagundoye:Beavis and Butthead and american dad a lot.
Rip Esselstyn:No.
Rip Esselstyn:Family guy, Beavis and butthead.
Rip Esselstyn:Can you, like, what are your voices in those?
Toques Alagundoye:Can you do for those with me is, you know, they've pretty much got everything done, and then when they need, like, two or three different characters in each episode, they'll come to me and be like, okay, we need, you know, this character's from the south.
Toques Alagundoye:Okay, this character's doctor.
Toques Alagundoye:Do whatever you want with that.
Toques Alagundoye:You know?
Toques Alagundoye:So I do, like, different things for them.
Toques Alagundoye:And then when it comes to something like arcane, that was an unbelievable experience.
Toques Alagundoye:It's one of the most wonderful and beautiful animated things I've ever watched.
Toques Alagundoye:Have you seen it?
Rip Esselstyn:Well, I watched some of the trailers and didn't it, didn't season two just come out in August or something?
Toques Alagundoye:Season two is going to come out in November.
Rip Esselstyn:That's it.
Toques Alagundoye:That's it, yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, it did really well.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, you know, at the time, that squid game was number one on Netflix.
Toques Alagundoye:It, like, it was the show that knocked squid game off its number one spot.
Rip Esselstyn:Wow.
Toques Alagundoye:They.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's based on a video game, so that the people who worked on the animation are the same studio that does the video game.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's all the same guys.
Toques Alagundoye:They didn't, like, shop it out to anybody and they really cared about it.
Toques Alagundoye:Took them six years to make the first season, and it's so beautifully done, and they really took their time.
Toques Alagundoye:And it was the first time that I really felt like I could take my time in the studio and really put the amount of depth into it that I would put into an on camera show.
Toques Alagundoye:So that was totally different.
Toques Alagundoye:And then, you know, I did duck tales.
Toques Alagundoye:I was a series regular on Duck Tales, which is another completely different thing because it's like the tone of it is like, you know, you're somewhere between adult humor and kids humor, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:So you have to walk that line.
Toques Alagundoye:And it's really everything that I've done is fun.
Rip Esselstyn:Tell me, when you're doing, when you're doing the voiceover work, do you, how often do you nail it on the first try or is it sometimes, you know, 10, 20, 30?
Toques Alagundoye:Um, I mean, I'm.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm pretty good at getting.
Toques Alagundoye:So usually you'll do three in a row, and I'm pretty good at getting it in that first three in a row.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And if it's something that I'm not getting, I will usually, you know, most actors don't like a line read, and I'll usually just say, tell me exactly how you want me to say it and I will just marry you because I want to do it.
Toques Alagundoye:The way they want me to do it.
Rip Esselstyn:So can you, can you give me a line that you would do from Beavis and Butthead?
Rip Esselstyn:Like what?
Rip Esselstyn:I want to know what your voice is like.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, it depends.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, there's a character that I do play on that in a few episodes.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't even remember what she sounds like now, but she's the neighbor and I think she's really shrill like this, and she just, you know, she's, she's a little high strong, and she really hates them as neighbors.
Rip Esselstyn:Love it.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay, and then what about Arcane?
Rip Esselstyn:Who are you in arcane?
Toques Alagundoye:On Arkane, I play Mel, and she's very regal and she's got sort of a deeper voice, and she's very relaxed and, yeah, she's a very graceful character.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's a little bit of a different flow for Mel.
Rip Esselstyn:Oh, that's much nicer than the Beavis one.
Rip Esselstyn:I feel very calm right now.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay, so let's, let's get to Fraser, which is super exciting.
Rip Esselstyn:And so let's start with this.
Rip Esselstyn:I loved watching Frasier, and as you know, as you know, I think it is probably one of the most successful spinoffs ever when it comes to these kind of series from, from cheers, right?
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:And, I mean, if I'm not mistaken, Cheers was eleven seasons and the first Frasier was eleven seasons.
Toques Alagundoye:Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:I mean, how unusual is that?
Toques Alagundoye:Very.
Rip Esselstyn:And then what, what, to your knowledge, what was the inspiration for Frasier to do another reboot almost 20 years later?
Toques Alagundoye:So, um, you know, Kelsey was seeing all these other reboots come out, and he was like, I mean, we could do that.
Toques Alagundoye:And he was like, he had felt like Frasier still had more life to live that you sort of saw.
Toques Alagundoye:You've seen, like, these two very big parts of his life in cheers and the first Frasier, but he still hasn't found love, and he still has, you know, has all of these.
Toques Alagundoye:He has, you know, loose ends with his son and, you know, his best friend that he would love to, you know, reconnect with.
Toques Alagundoye:And so there are all these loose ends that he wants to tie up, and he's doing that in this final iteration of Frasier, and he was really excited to be able to do it.
Toques Alagundoye:He loves the character and he, I mean, he still puts his all into it every day.
Toques Alagundoye:You'd never know.
Toques Alagundoye:He's been playing it for over two decades.
Rip Esselstyn: e first, the first season was: Rip Esselstyn:How did you happen to get mixed up in Frasier?
Toques Alagundoye:So the casting director for Frasier is so, you know, you'll sort of, like, make, you'll have little fans in casting departments, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:And this casting director has called me in for everything he's ever done.
Toques Alagundoye:He was the casting director for Modern Family, for instance.
Toques Alagundoye:And I think I auditioned for Modern Family ten times and then finally got on it because he was like, no, I'm getting you on here.
Toques Alagundoye:So, you know, he went to his favorites, and I was one of them.
Toques Alagundoye:And when I say favorites, I mean, like, the first batch of favourites, which I think was like, 200.
Toques Alagundoye:So the people that, like, the women who popped into his head.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And then.
Toques Alagundoye:And initially, honestly, I got the script and I didn't even look at it.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, I don't.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't want to do it because Frasier is one of my favorite shows of all time.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, if they wreck it, I don't want to be part of it.
Toques Alagundoye:And then they came back again, and I was like, all right.
Toques Alagundoye:So I sent an audition in, and I thought, oh, she's kind of a fun character.
Toques Alagundoye:Okay.
Toques Alagundoye:And then about a month later, I had a conversation with Kelsey, and it was a lovely conversation.
Toques Alagundoye:And I thought, well, I.
Toques Alagundoye:It was nice to talk to him.
Toques Alagundoye:That's that.
Toques Alagundoye:And then they were, they asked me if I wanted a test.
Toques Alagundoye:Well, I did, but they couldn't get a test deal together that my agent liked.
Toques Alagundoye:She did not think they were offering me enough.
Toques Alagundoye:And so she came back to me and she said, listen, I think we should say no.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, oh.
Toques Alagundoye:And she said, listen, if they're not valuing you now, they're never going to value you.
Toques Alagundoye:I had literally just stopped chemo.
Toques Alagundoye:I had stopped chemo a week and a half before I was right out of chemo.
Toques Alagundoye:I was exhausted.
Toques Alagundoye:And I thought, okay, you know what?
Toques Alagundoye:This is just the universe's way of saying I have to rest because I worked.
Toques Alagundoye:I worked through my first three operations.
Toques Alagundoye:I was on a show called fatal attraction, and they were amazing.
Toques Alagundoye:I worked through that.
Toques Alagundoye:I worked through my chemo.
Toques Alagundoye:I was tired.
Toques Alagundoye:Have a four year old who is at the time three.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, okay, well, this is the universe telling me I need to rest.
Toques Alagundoye:And so they tested.
Toques Alagundoye:And a day after the test, I got a call.
Toques Alagundoye:Two days after the test, I got a call.
Toques Alagundoye:Do you still want to be on Frasier for my people?
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, yes, I guess lying in bed, just regretting the whole thing.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, oh, God.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, God.
Toques Alagundoye:And she said, okay, great, we've got a deal together.
Toques Alagundoye:Can you make the table read tomorrow?
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, ah, yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:So that's how it happened.
Toques Alagundoye:And I'm thrilled.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm thrilled that it did, because this has been probably the most special work experience of my entire life.
Rip Esselstyn:Well, I got to see a sneak peek of episode one.
Rip Esselstyn:Um, somebody on your team was nice enough to send me the.
Rip Esselstyn:The first episode.
Rip Esselstyn:Nice that the dropped September 19.
Rip Esselstyn:So this will have already.
Rip Esselstyn:It will have already aired, but I'm sure we can go back and watch it.
Rip Esselstyn:And it was brilliant.
Rip Esselstyn:You were brilliant.
Rip Esselstyn:I was laughing so hard.
Rip Esselstyn:Tell me, do you guys perform in front of a live audience or not?
Toques Alagundoye:We do, indeed.
Toques Alagundoye:I.
Toques Alagundoye:Mm hmm.
Toques Alagundoye:We do.
Toques Alagundoye:We rehearse for four days, and then we.
Toques Alagundoye:We do a live one, and it's.
Toques Alagundoye:It's.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, God, it's the most fun.
Toques Alagundoye:It's the most fun in the world.
Rip Esselstyn:Did you say you rehearse for four days?
Toques Alagundoye:We do, yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, three days, really?
Toques Alagundoye:Because we have the table read, and then we all go home after that because they want to rewrite everything.
Toques Alagundoye:And then we have, like, two full days of rehearsal, and then on the fourth day, technically fourth day, because we do, like, Wednesday, table read, Thursday, Friday rehearsal.
Toques Alagundoye:Monday, we do our camera rehearsal.
Toques Alagundoye:So all the camera people come in, and they figure out what their shots are going to be.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't know how they do this.
Toques Alagundoye:They literally figure everything out in one day.
Toques Alagundoye:They're brilliant.
Toques Alagundoye:But a lot of these people, they've been working together since cheers.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, they've been.
Toques Alagundoye:They've done cheers.
Toques Alagundoye:They did Will and Grace.
Toques Alagundoye:They did, you know, so they know exactly what they're doing, but still.
Toques Alagundoye:And then, um, you know, we'll have, like, a little, like, tidy up session the day of, and then we'll get into hair and makeup.
Toques Alagundoye:We do a speed through, and then we go in, and we.
Toques Alagundoye:We do a live.
Toques Alagundoye:We do live audience.
Toques Alagundoye:That's great.
Rip Esselstyn:You are really funny.
Rip Esselstyn:Tell me, and tell the audience, like, how would you describe Olivia Finch?
Rip Esselstyn:Like, what's her personality?
Rip Esselstyn:Like, what does she do?
Rip Esselstyn:What kind of.
Rip Esselstyn:What makes her throb?
Toques Alagundoye:So Olivia Finch is the head of the psychology department at Harvard, and she is incredibly intelligent.
Toques Alagundoye:She is very driven.
Toques Alagundoye:She's absolutely an overachiever.
Toques Alagundoye:But she is very stunted in her personal life because she spent so much time trying to get where she wanted to go.
Toques Alagundoye:And so, you know, she doesn't have a partner.
Toques Alagundoye:She doesn't have children.
Toques Alagundoye:She doesn't have anything close to any of that.
Toques Alagundoye:And she is also.
Toques Alagundoye:She's a big old nerd.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, she.
Toques Alagundoye:The things that she enjoys doing and likes doing.
Toques Alagundoye:Like a lot of people are like, what?
Toques Alagundoye:What are you doing?
Toques Alagundoye:But, like, for her, it's thrilling.
Toques Alagundoye:And because she's a bit sheltered when it comes to social situations, she doesn't really care what anybody thinks.
Toques Alagundoye:She's this beautiful mixture of being incredibly sure of herself but also having no idea how to navigate through social situations.
Toques Alagundoye:She's very, very socially awkward, and she wasn't initially written that way.
Toques Alagundoye:I brought that to her, which is.
Toques Alagundoye:That's all very true to who I am.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, they've.
Toques Alagundoye:They've written towards it quite well.
Toques Alagundoye:But you get to see her dating and you get to see, you know, I don't think she's ever really had a group of friends before who have seen her for who she is and enjoyed her.
Toques Alagundoye:And she finally does have this group of friends, and it.
Toques Alagundoye:She's really enjoying, you know, figuring herself out through these people who really see her.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, you also see her sister this season played by my amazing friend, Yvette Nicole Brown.
Toques Alagundoye:Who was that?
Toques Alagundoye:That was my request.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, if we ever actually see her sister, it has to be Yvette.
Toques Alagundoye:And she did a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant job, as she always does.
Toques Alagundoye:And she always brings so much joy and positivity to set, which is what our set is.
Toques Alagundoye:Our set is a joyous, positive place, and we've been so blessed to only have that kind of person come on and work with us.
Toques Alagundoye:But you also see through her relationship with her sister that she is.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, I think part of why she's succeeded so much is because, obviously, they've got parents that have driven them very hard.
Toques Alagundoye:But also, her sister is incredibly successful and she's just kind of trying to keep up with her, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:So.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, that's Olivia.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:And is her brother Tabitha?
Rip Esselstyn:I mean, her sister Tabitha?
Toques Alagundoye:No, no, her sister is Monica.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:You know, you have two lines that I remember from the first episode that just stick out because it was so funny.
Rip Esselstyn:The first was.
Rip Esselstyn:And if it's the wrong decision.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:And, you know, it'll make sense when.
Rip Esselstyn:When they.
Rip Esselstyn:When you watch it.
Rip Esselstyn:But.
Rip Esselstyn:And then the other one is where I think you're looking at it.
Rip Esselstyn:Maybe.
Rip Esselstyn:Maybe it was an old boyfriend that's in the shit or a girlfriend.
Rip Esselstyn:He's dating a girl.
Rip Esselstyn:And you're, like, a woman that looks uncomfortably like me.
Toques Alagundoye:I do.
Toques Alagundoye:I remember both of them.
Toques Alagundoye:She's a little high strung.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:For sure.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Do you know how many episodes are going to be in, in season two?
Toques Alagundoye:Yes, ten episodes, because it's streaming, so we only get ten.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Rip Esselstyn:Well, knock it out of the park.
Rip Esselstyn:You guys are off to a great start.
Rip Esselstyn:Let's, let's talk about your breast cancer diagnosis, if you don't mind.
Rip Esselstyn:How did that, I mean, let's backtrack for a second.
Rip Esselstyn:You, if I'm not mistaken, in, you know, my notes and my research, you have been vegetarian for about 30 years, is that correct?
Toques Alagundoye:No, it's, it was like kind of a, it's a weird journey.
Toques Alagundoye:I never wanted to eat animals as a kid, so as soon as I was able to get away to boarding school, I stopped eating meat for the most part.
Toques Alagundoye:I haven't touched mammal since I was about 16.
Toques Alagundoye:I still ate fish and poultry in my God, like about 20 years ago, I gave up dairy, which was life changing, and then I gave up poultry.
Toques Alagundoye:Then I was pescetarian for a long time, then I gave up fish and then I was fully vegan for about six years, which was fantastic, you know, but then because of my diagnosis and because I'm a survivor and because so many, well, there are no FDA approved supplements and so anything can go into a supplement.
Toques Alagundoye:I am unable to get my b twelve through supplements anymore.
Toques Alagundoye:So now I eat a little bit of fish every now and then, but still no dairy, no poultry, no mammal anything.
Toques Alagundoye:And there's a lot of seafood I won't eat.
Toques Alagundoye:I pretty much just stick to salmon when I do eat seafood.
Rip Esselstyn:Explain to me the b twelve.
Rip Esselstyn:Why can you not get your b twelve through supplementation?
Toques Alagundoye:So my oncologist doesn't want me to be taking any supplements because they're not exactly.
Toques Alagundoye:So you might not know what's in there.
Toques Alagundoye:And because of that, there's no quality control.
Toques Alagundoye:If there is some sort of carcinogen, something in there, the first five years after you survive cancer are the most important.
Toques Alagundoye:You want to make sure that your body is as clean as possible.
Toques Alagundoye:So.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, sorry.
Toques Alagundoye:And I, and, you know, I get it, I get it.
Toques Alagundoye:But, yeah, I would rather be fully vegan if I could be.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah, yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:That's really interesting about the, about the supplementation.
Rip Esselstyn:Well, you know, a great source of b twelve is if you get Red Star nutritional yeast.
Rip Esselstyn:That's, that's basically.
Toques Alagundoye:Is it?
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:The way it's grown, it has, my understanding, is naturally occurring b twelve in it.
Rip Esselstyn:So you may have changed your life.
Rip Esselstyn:So that's an option for you right there because you definitely don't want to get deficient in b twelve.
Toques Alagundoye:No, absolutely not.
Toques Alagundoye:But thank you for telling me that.
Toques Alagundoye:That's fantastic.
Toques Alagundoye:Okay, good.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:All right.
Rip Esselstyn:So when.
Rip Esselstyn:When were you diagnosed with your breast cancer?
Toques Alagundoye: I was diagnosed in August of: Toques Alagundoye:I went in to get a routine mammogram, and they saw some calcification.
Toques Alagundoye:They said, we want you to get, like, they're kind of three different levels of mammogram.
Toques Alagundoye:So then I had to go get the next level of mammogram, which is more of, like a 3d thing.
Toques Alagundoye:And they were like, yep, definitely calcifications.
Toques Alagundoye:I had to go in and get a biopsy.
Toques Alagundoye:The biopsy showed cancer.
Toques Alagundoye:And so I had to go in and get what they call a partial mastectomy.
Toques Alagundoye:But it's really.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just a mastectomy.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And so they took that out, but they did not.
Toques Alagundoye:There was one side where they didn't get a clear margin.
Toques Alagundoye:We went in two more times, and they still couldn't get that clear margin.
Toques Alagundoye:And my doctor was concerned about that because they didn't see any of that on any of the imaging.
Toques Alagundoye:So she said, you know, I would recommend you get a mastectomy on this side.
Toques Alagundoye:And I said, listen, let's just.
Toques Alagundoye:Let's just do all of it.
Toques Alagundoye:Let's just get a full, you know, I don't want to worry about this anymore.
Toques Alagundoye:I've got a small child.
Rip Esselstyn:You know, what's going through your mind when you.
Rip Esselstyn:When you basically came back and there was some calcification or there was something suspicious?
Rip Esselstyn:Are you.
Rip Esselstyn:Are you worried?
Rip Esselstyn:Are you fretful?
Rip Esselstyn:Are you chill?
Toques Alagundoye:No, I wasn't worried at all.
Toques Alagundoye:The first time I thought, okay, let me go get the second one.
Toques Alagundoye:It'll be fine.
Toques Alagundoye:And then they said, you need a biopsy.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, okay, let's go get the biopsy.
Toques Alagundoye:It'll be fine.
Toques Alagundoye:And then I got the call from my Ob gyn.
Toques Alagundoye:He told me, and, you know, I was definitely shocked.
Toques Alagundoye:But at the same time, there's been a lot of cancer on my mother's side of the family.
Toques Alagundoye:My mother, in fact, has cancer right now.
Toques Alagundoye:She's got lymphatic leukemia, so something she can live with for a very, very, very long time.
Toques Alagundoye:But many people have passed from cancer in my family.
Toques Alagundoye:Many people have had it.
Toques Alagundoye:So there was this weird sensation of, oh, like I almost relaxed.
Toques Alagundoye:It's like I had been waiting to get cancer my whole life almost.
Toques Alagundoye:And I almost relaxed and was like, okay, so I know what kind it is cool.
Toques Alagundoye:How do we deal with this?
Toques Alagundoye:The one time that I got upset was when I had to call my dad and tell him to, um, because I knew it would be difficult for him to deal with, um, so that I got upset when I had to tell my dad.
Toques Alagundoye:Um, but, yeah, you know, we just got the game plan together.
Toques Alagundoye:Um, I talked to family and friends, and everybody had their things that they were going to do to help out.
Toques Alagundoye:Um, initially, I was just going to have radiation, but, um, after they didn't get that clear margin, the second time that they went in, they also took lymph nodes to make sure it hadn't spread.
Toques Alagundoye:It had not spread.
Toques Alagundoye:But instead of being at stage zero, which is what they thought I was, I was actually at stage one.
Toques Alagundoye:So then I moved on to needing chemo.
Toques Alagundoye:That was the first time that I personally was devastated about it, because I knew that chemo meant that I would not be able to have.
Toques Alagundoye:I probably would not be able to have any more biological children.
Toques Alagundoye:So I did do one round of IVF, trying to get some eggs, get an embryo, and we.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, I was 48 at the time, so, you know, usually at that age, you'd need several rounds in order to get something.
Toques Alagundoye:We got three eggs.
Toques Alagundoye:Only one made an embryo, and unfortunately, that embryo didn't make it.
Toques Alagundoye:But I at least had the peace of mind of knowing that I tried.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, that was the first time that I actually wept, being sick, because I thought, oh, God.
Toques Alagundoye:And then, you know, my best friend from UMass, she is a breast cancer survivor.
Toques Alagundoye:She had it about ten years before I did.
Toques Alagundoye:So I'd gone through it peripherally with her, and I knew how hard chemo was.
Toques Alagundoye:So, yeah, I was a little devastated by that because I wanted to be able to play with my kid and just have energy as much as I am able to rally under pretty much any circumstance, you just can't when you're on chemo.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just not possible.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Where did you have all of your surgeries and medical care?
Toques Alagundoye:I was at Cedars Sinai.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, I was at Cedars, and I had.
Rip Esselstyn:Is that in New York City?
Toques Alagundoye:It's in Los Angeles.
Rip Esselstyn:Oh, it's Lon.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And I had.
Toques Alagundoye:I had amazing care.
Toques Alagundoye:I had very good health insurance through SAG.
Toques Alagundoye:I was very lucky about that.
Toques Alagundoye:I was very, very lucky that I was on fatal attraction at the time, because that actually, it qualified me.
Toques Alagundoye:It was, like, through my qualification for the next year.
Toques Alagundoye:So that qualified me for the next year of health insurance.
Toques Alagundoye:So I didn't have to worry.
Toques Alagundoye:It was very relieving.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And my doctor, he's amazing.
Toques Alagundoye:He.
Toques Alagundoye:He made sure that I was comfortable with all my doctors.
Toques Alagundoye:All my doctors were female, including my fertility doctors.
Toques Alagundoye:My surgeon was female.
Toques Alagundoye:My fertility doctors were female.
Toques Alagundoye:My oncologist was female.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, everybody was female.
Toques Alagundoye:They're all women of color.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, I had an amazing experience with them.
Toques Alagundoye:They gave me a social worker, different therapist, a nutritionist.
Toques Alagundoye:I had it all with them.
Toques Alagundoye:I was very conscious of how incredibly lucky I was to have that level of health insurance and level of care, because I don't know how anyone gets through that without it.
Rip Esselstyn:So tell me, chemotherapy, how many rounds?
Rip Esselstyn:How many weeks apart?
Rip Esselstyn:How does that work?
Toques Alagundoye:So I did four rounds.
Toques Alagundoye:They're three weeks apart.
Toques Alagundoye:And I also was doing cold capping in order to kind of salvage as much hair as I could, and so I would.
Rip Esselstyn:What does that mean?
Rip Esselstyn:What does cold mean?
Toques Alagundoye:I don't know what cold capping is.
Toques Alagundoye:You're essentially packing dry ice onto your head.
Rip Esselstyn:Is that painful?
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, it's painful for some people.
Toques Alagundoye:I did not find it that painful.
Toques Alagundoye:It's definitely uncomfortable.
Toques Alagundoye:Most people do find it very painful.
Toques Alagundoye:But, like, I had a tattoo on my ribs done yesterday, and I fell asleep.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, I've got really high pain tolerance.
Toques Alagundoye:So, yeah, it can be, but it does save.
Toques Alagundoye:I was able to save about 50% of my hair, which was.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, I was still able to audition.
Toques Alagundoye:I was still able to do all sorts of stuff and feel like myself.
Toques Alagundoye:I was very candid about the fact that I was ill, so people knew.
Toques Alagundoye:So had I lost my hair, it wouldn't have been, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:But, you know, initially, I did not think that I would care.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, oh, let me just do cold capping just in case I book a job or something.
Toques Alagundoye:But I was very glad I did, because so much becomes.
Toques Alagundoye:So much is taken out of your control when you're going through treatment.
Toques Alagundoye:And being able to look in the mirror and see some semblance of who you are is very, very helpful.
Toques Alagundoye:And it is incredibly distressing when your hair starts to fall out.
Toques Alagundoye:It's.
Toques Alagundoye:It's really, because it really does.
Toques Alagundoye:It comes out in chunks, you know, and it's just like you're in the shower, and all of a sudden there's just, like, a big wad of hair on the ground, you know, it's really disconcerting, you know, the way it happens, it's.
Toques Alagundoye:It kind of makes you feel like you're dying, you know, because your body is it's quote unquote failing in that way.
Toques Alagundoye:Of course it's not.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just, it lets go of the hair because it's trying to make sure that it's giving to all of the parts of your body that really need, you know, nutrients and stuff.
Toques Alagundoye:So it kind of just lets go of your nails and your hair because it's like you could deal with that later on, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:But, yeah, cold capping was great.
Toques Alagundoye:So I would go in an hour before to start the cold capping.
Toques Alagundoye:Then the chemo itself would take about two and a half, 3 hours, and then I would stay for an additional 4 hours to finish a cold capping.
Toques Alagundoye:And what they do is they put fresh ice on your head every 20 to 30 minutes.
Toques Alagundoye:And, I mean, honestly, by the third batch, your head is completely numb.
Toques Alagundoye:You're not feeling anything after that.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, and I was in a really great infusion center as well.
Toques Alagundoye:It was beautiful.
Toques Alagundoye:There's a beautiful view, and everyone was really nice.
Toques Alagundoye:And you kind of had your own little, like, cubby, so you're kind of, like, in your own space.
Toques Alagundoye:And, yeah, I.
Toques Alagundoye:It was hard, but, you know, the first week afterwards, your body is just like, no, thank you.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't want to do anything, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:And I would really, really force myself to eat, you know, the first, see, I would get it on Thursday.
Toques Alagundoye:Friday, I would feel great.
Toques Alagundoye:I would feel fantastic on Friday.
Toques Alagundoye:Saturday, I'd get a little bit of nausea, and I would lose my appetite.
Toques Alagundoye:Sunday, the nausea would get a little bit worse, and my appetite would completely disappear.
Toques Alagundoye:So those days, I would literally have to force feed myself, which not many people can do.
Toques Alagundoye:It's really hard to do.
Rip Esselstyn:What would you force feed yourself?
Toques Alagundoye:It was usually pasta, pasta, bread, you know, just like, because that was really palatable.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, it was.
Toques Alagundoye:I knew it would be filling, and I would just.
Toques Alagundoye:Because the more I could get into my system, the less the nausea was.
Toques Alagundoye:And I did not want to take the nausea medication because my body already had so much poison in it, and I did not want to add anything that I did not need to add.
Toques Alagundoye:So I did it without the nausea medication.
Toques Alagundoye:It's also on an incredible amount of steroids because I was allergic to.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, they put you on steroids anyway, but I was allergic to one of the chemos, so I would go into.
Toques Alagundoye:I went into anaphylactic shock twice because of it.
Toques Alagundoye:So they had to keep on upping the amount of steroids I was on.
Toques Alagundoye:So, yeah, I already had so much poison in my system.
Toques Alagundoye:I just wanted to, you know, so, and I was drinking tons of water and.
Toques Alagundoye:Which most people aren't able to do either.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm really good at mind over matter.
Toques Alagundoye:So I just was doing what I knew would help my body function well.
Toques Alagundoye:And I didn't have any of the, I didn't, you know, I also, oh, I had ice on my fingers and toes while I was doing the actual chemo so that I wouldn't get neuropathy.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was taking.
Rip Esselstyn:And for people, and for people that don't know what neuropathy is, basically tingling in your extremities.
Toques Alagundoye:Yes.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Do you know if you do get neuropathy from the chemo, is it, is there a shelf life on that or.
Toques Alagundoye:It's different for everybody.
Toques Alagundoye:It can last forever.
Toques Alagundoye:It can last for a couple of years.
Toques Alagundoye:It's really different for everybody.
Toques Alagundoye:But if you do the cold, they have cold gloves and cold socks that you can get on Amazon.
Toques Alagundoye:And my cold capping person would actually put it in her cooler because hers was like an insane, like, freezer and she'd freeze them up for me, really, really well.
Toques Alagundoye:And I also was doing acupuncture.
Toques Alagundoye:I was seeing an acupuncturist who was a specialist in, you know, treatment, cancer treatment, and I was taking l glutamine, which really, really helps with neuropathy.
Toques Alagundoye:And that was courtesy of my acupuncturist that I knew that I could not take any herbs at the time because my liver was already going through so much.
Toques Alagundoye:But, yeah, I just, you know, and then I would force myself to go on walks, go outside.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, it was, the first week is really difficult.
Toques Alagundoye:The second week, you feel a little bit better, but you're still very low energy.
Toques Alagundoye:But that's when I would go back to work.
Toques Alagundoye:And because I was doing voiceover work, I was able to do voiceover work at the time.
Toques Alagundoye:I also had a very low immune system, so I wasn't able to be on set because of that.
Toques Alagundoye:I couldn't really be around people.
Toques Alagundoye:But I have a studio at home, so everybody was wonderful and worked with me through my home studio.
Toques Alagundoye:And then the last week, the third week, you feel great and then you go back to chemo.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:If you don't mind, I just like to ask you some, some kind of, I mean, this is very personal, but, but I'm wondering, were you able to salvage your nipples, for example?
Toques Alagundoye:I was.
Rip Esselstyn:That's okay.
Toques Alagundoye:I was.
Toques Alagundoye:So there is a.
Toques Alagundoye:So some people will do double mastectomy and reconstruction at the same time, my surgeon, who is also a woman of color, I.
Toques Alagundoye:Two different surgeons, I had the surgeon who took everything out and then the surgeon who was building me back up, and I.
Toques Alagundoye:So she likes to do it in three surgeries.
Toques Alagundoye:And the first surgery is called a nipple sparing.
Toques Alagundoye:And what they do, and I still don't really understand how or why it works, but they go in and they separate the nipple from the flesh on the inside before you do the mastectomy.
Toques Alagundoye:And it sort of forces blood to the area.
Toques Alagundoye:And then when you do the mastectomy, they put this.
Toques Alagundoye:It's like you're being like you're wrapped in plastic, basically.
Toques Alagundoye:Like if you've ever had a tattoo, it's the same thing that they'll put on your tattoo.
Toques Alagundoye:And so you're basically wrapped in plastic so that your nipples know where to be because there's no nerve, there are no nerves anymore, you know, so that when you get your reconstruction, you don't have, like, one pointing up or one pointing down.
Toques Alagundoye:Right.
Toques Alagundoye:So then they, you have to wait about three months, and then you do the reconstruction.
Toques Alagundoye:And it's, you know, they're both big surgeries and.
Toques Alagundoye:But some people, the nipple sparing doesn't work.
Toques Alagundoye:Mine did work, but I cannot feel a thing.
Toques Alagundoye:They do have surgery now that gives you a little bit, it's a little more complicated of a surgery, can give you a little bit of feeling in your nipple, but it's nothing that is going to.
Toques Alagundoye:It's nothing that aids in, like, sexual gratification or anything like that.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just like you can feel it.
Toques Alagundoye:Like you can feel your arm.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:So my surgeon said, I don't think it's worth it because it requires even more surgery.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't want to do that to you.
Toques Alagundoye:But I still have them.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:And so you've got implants.
Rip Esselstyn:Do you know what kind of material they use for implants now?
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:So you can do saline or you can do silicone.
Toques Alagundoye:I have silicone.
Toques Alagundoye:So the silicone looks and feels, quote unquote, more real.
Toques Alagundoye:The saline does not.
Toques Alagundoye:The benefit of the saline is that if you have a leak of any kind, it's just saline.
Toques Alagundoye:If you have a leak of any kind with the silicone, you can have a whole new issue.
Toques Alagundoye:You and you do have to get them swapped out, like, every ten years is what is recommended by the FDA.
Toques Alagundoye:But what a lot of surgeons will do is they'll just kind of keep an eye on it with imaging, like, as you get towards that ten years and what they do now.
Toques Alagundoye:So they used to, when my best friend had it done, she had the implants put under the muscle.
Toques Alagundoye:That's how they used to do it, because there was nothing.
Toques Alagundoye:There's nothing there but skin.
Toques Alagundoye:Once you've had a double mastectomy, right, and she had the two for one surgery.
Toques Alagundoye:So the way I did, I had the nipple sparing, then I had the double mastectomy, and I had spaces put in and the spaces of a trip.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's basically a bag of saline, and it's got an opening with a magnet around it.
Toques Alagundoye:And they put just a little bit in and you go in every two weeks and they literally pump in more saline.
Toques Alagundoye:So you're literally getting your breasts inflating.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Because when they do the mastectomy, they have to take quite a bit of skin when they stitch you up.
Toques Alagundoye:So even if you're going back to where you were before, which is what I did, you have to stretch the skin out.
Toques Alagundoye:And then once you've stretched it out that way, on the third surgery, they'll go in.
Toques Alagundoye:And what they do now is they use cadaver skin and they essentially.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, actually, no, sorry.
Toques Alagundoye:They do this in the.
Toques Alagundoye:During the mastectomy, before they put in the spaces they build you, essentially, like, it's like a cage, almost, with cadaver skin.
Toques Alagundoye:And the way it's built is so that it's going to scar.
Toques Alagundoye:It's going to end up being scar tissue.
Toques Alagundoye:And it gives you the lining that you need at the front of the breast to hold the implant between your, the front of your breast and the muscle so that you can now have it on.
Toques Alagundoye:On top of the muscle instead of under the muscle.
Toques Alagundoye:Because under the muscle is, first of all, it's quite painful.
Toques Alagundoye:The, you know, you have to do a lot of physical therapy because now you're stretching the muscles as well.
Toques Alagundoye:And a lot of women who have it done under the muscles, they, like, will have difficulty doing, like, if they do yoga, have a difficult doing, like a downward dog or something, you know, or, like, I have all my mobility.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, you sometimes will lose mobility.
Toques Alagundoye:I was very conscious of that, so I was doing a lot of body work, but.
Toques Alagundoye:And then also the muscles can push the implants up, so they end up up here.
Toques Alagundoye:After a while, when they're on top of the muscle, they actually end up kind of sagging a little bit to look a little more real.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, but you don't have anything in there except for that cadaver skin and the implant.
Toques Alagundoye:Everything else is gone.
Rip Esselstyn:What a.
Rip Esselstyn:What a.
Rip Esselstyn:What a journey.
Rip Esselstyn:What an absolute journey.
Rip Esselstyn:What.
Rip Esselstyn:What would you say are some of the big things that surviving cancer has taught you?
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, my God.
Toques Alagundoye:So much.
Toques Alagundoye:So much.
Toques Alagundoye:There were definitely a lot of gifts that came with it.
Toques Alagundoye:I have to say.
Toques Alagundoye:The first is that I am.
Toques Alagundoye:I am naturally a very anxious person.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm naturally a worrier.
Toques Alagundoye:I worry much less.
Toques Alagundoye:My priorities are completely different.
Toques Alagundoye:I have far fewer priorities.
Toques Alagundoye:Very good at being like, that's not a problem.
Toques Alagundoye:I can take care of that later.
Toques Alagundoye:Letting things go, if it's something I can't do anything about.
Toques Alagundoye:And my husband was my caretaker during the pandemic.
Toques Alagundoye:My husband, he's a mechanic.
Toques Alagundoye:He stopped working so that I could keep working.
Toques Alagundoye:And because we had a young child and he was just about to go back to work when I was diagnosed.
Toques Alagundoye:He stayed home, and I was the person who took care of everything, all the shopping, everything to do with the house, but everything.
Toques Alagundoye:And he had to take that on.
Toques Alagundoye:It created this beautiful dynamic where we are now really equals, because he had to.
Toques Alagundoye:He saw a lot of what I had to do.
Toques Alagundoye:The second week after my first.
Toques Alagundoye:My first operation, he came, and he was like, I didn't realize how much you do around here.
Toques Alagundoye:I just wanted to say thank you.
Toques Alagundoye:Okay, cool.
Rip Esselstyn:And nice to hear that it was.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:And now, you know, we really share those duties now, you know, we take care of our family as a.
Toques Alagundoye:An equal, you know, as equal partners, where it really made us more of a unit.
Toques Alagundoye:It was very.
Toques Alagundoye:I think that something like this is actually a lot harder for the caretakers than it is for the person going through it, because, you know, when you're going through it, like, everyone's taking care of you, you know, and then you're, you know, like, it's.
Toques Alagundoye:Everyone's taking care of you, and.
Toques Alagundoye:And he really.
Toques Alagundoye:To say he rose to the occasion is an understatement.
Toques Alagundoye:He really did.
Toques Alagundoye:And I think it made us both appreciate each other even more.
Toques Alagundoye:It made our marriage stronger.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, our marriage always was strong.
Toques Alagundoye:We always have been very much in love and very good friends.
Toques Alagundoye:But it added another layer to that.
Toques Alagundoye:It also taught me that honesty is the best policy with my kid.
Toques Alagundoye:I have.
Toques Alagundoye:I was honest with him about everything all the way through, even though he was so little.
Toques Alagundoye:And so he felt involved.
Toques Alagundoye:He wasn't scared at all about any of it.
Toques Alagundoye:And my level of gratitude.
Toques Alagundoye:I've always been someone who comes from a place of gratitude, but my level of coming from a place of gratitude has.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, it's all encompassing now.
Toques Alagundoye:It's in everything that I do, because I was very aware that I was so lucky not only to have family and friends, like, my best friend came to take care of me during, you know, after I had my double mastectomy.
Toques Alagundoye:My family was coming in and out.
Toques Alagundoye:My sisters, my father, my mother, my stepmother.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, everybody was.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, we have a nanny who's with us Monday through Friday, you know, ten to six to make sure my kiddos okay.
Toques Alagundoye:And she was phenomenal.
Toques Alagundoye:And, I mean, I was just really blessed to have so much.
Toques Alagundoye:I was able to do acupuncture, which.
Toques Alagundoye:Which is not covered by my insurance.
Toques Alagundoye:I had, like, so many different therapists to make sure that I was okay emotionally.
Toques Alagundoye:I had.
Toques Alagundoye:Was able to do massage and bodywork and a lot of things that people weren't able to do that I know made it easier for me.
Toques Alagundoye:I was lucky to be working with people who would give me grace if it was a day that I didn't think I could make it to a recording or something and would let me record from home.
Toques Alagundoye:Fatal attraction moved around everything so that I could get those first three surgeries done.
Toques Alagundoye:And the final surgery that I had.
Toques Alagundoye:Well, the final lumpectomy, I had it the next day.
Toques Alagundoye:After that, I had my egg retrieval.
Toques Alagundoye:And then the day after that was my final day on set, and they rearranged everything so that it would be the easiest day for me possible.
Toques Alagundoye:And then on Frasier, I had my double mastectomy in the middle of filming the first season.
Toques Alagundoye:And initially, we had pushed it to the end when I got the job.
Toques Alagundoye:And then my surgeon was like, it makes me nervous.
Toques Alagundoye:It just does.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, we can push it, but I just don't.
Toques Alagundoye:I have a gut feeling that we shouldn't.
Toques Alagundoye:She was just so anxious about the fact that we hadn't seen stuff in the imaging and stuff.
Toques Alagundoye:And so I was like, well, we've only filmed three episodes, so I guess I'm getting written out of the show.
Toques Alagundoye:And I went to the showrunners, and I told them, and they were like, yeah, what do you need?
Toques Alagundoye:And I was like, oh.
Toques Alagundoye:So then I went home that night, and I got a call from Kelsey, and I was like, okay, now I'm getting fired.
Toques Alagundoye:And he was very emotional.
Toques Alagundoye:And he said, listen, I know how actors think.
Toques Alagundoye:We adore you.
Toques Alagundoye:This is your family.
Toques Alagundoye:The show is your home.
Toques Alagundoye:We will do everything that you need so that you are okay.
Toques Alagundoye:We'll give you the time that you.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, working with the best people on the planet, what they did.
Toques Alagundoye:Was they.
Toques Alagundoye:They pre filmed one thing that I was in.
Toques Alagundoye:They wrote me out of.
Toques Alagundoye:How did we do it?
Toques Alagundoye:They.
Toques Alagundoye:They shot me.
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:They pre filmed one.
Toques Alagundoye:They wrote me out of a second one.
Toques Alagundoye:And then they planned that right before a hiatus so that I could get the two and a half weeks that I needed.
Toques Alagundoye:And then, yeah, I went back after two and a half weeks, and, yeah, everyone was just really great.
Toques Alagundoye:And my mum was driving me to work, my husband was picking me up from work, so I couldn't drive for weeks and weeks.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, everybody chipped in.
Toques Alagundoye:Everybody chipped in to make it as easy as possible for me.
Toques Alagundoye:So I just.
Toques Alagundoye:I realized how very, very fortunate I was.
Toques Alagundoye:And it also, I've always been someone who, you know, likes to volunteer, you know, and do what I can to give back.
Toques Alagundoye:But it was never really, like, a focus of mine.
Toques Alagundoye:And now, like, anything that I can do for anybody, whether it's an organization or a friend or whatever, I will do, because I feel like if you can do something, you should do something.
Toques Alagundoye:And if we all did that, the world would be a much easier place to live in.
Toques Alagundoye:And that's why I'm so candid about what I've gone through.
Toques Alagundoye:Because if I.
Toques Alagundoye:If I can help, you know, one person go to a mammogram that they don't want to go to and find something early enough that they can go through treatment and live, then my work here is done, you know?
Rip Esselstyn:So what would be your recommendation to women?
Rip Esselstyn:And I know that men get breast cancer, but much, much, much less frequently.
Rip Esselstyn:What would be your recommendation as far as getting mammograms?
Toques Alagundoye:So definitely get your annual mammogram 100%.
Toques Alagundoye:I was a little blase about it.
Toques Alagundoye:I hadn't had one for a couple of years because I breastfed for almost three years, and because I was breastfeeding, I could have definitely had one the second year, but I just didn't.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, I'm fine.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm breastfeeding.
Toques Alagundoye:Nothing else is going to happen to my breast.
Toques Alagundoye:How that made sense in my head, I don't know.
Toques Alagundoye:That's not true.
Toques Alagundoye:But definitely go and get your annual mammogram.
Toques Alagundoye:A lot of people think that they're going to be painful.
Toques Alagundoye:They're not painful.
Toques Alagundoye:They are very uncomfortable.
Toques Alagundoye:As close up as you can get, your arm is in the weird position, and then, yes, your boob does get squished between two big metal plates, but they only go as far as they can.
Toques Alagundoye:They're not going any further.
Toques Alagundoye:So it's uncomfortable, but, but it's necessary because the earlier you find cancer and so many, it's second only to skin cancer for women.
Toques Alagundoye:And 90% of women who go through treatment be breast cancer.
Toques Alagundoye:These days, the breast cancer treatments are getting better and better and better, and the earlier you find it, the less treatment you're going to need.
Toques Alagundoye:First of all, like, you might just need a lumpectomy and no radiation and no, you know, but as soon as you can get it, get to what it is, the better.
Toques Alagundoye:And I know that a lot of people operate in a place of, if I don't know, then it's better for me not to know, you know, like, you know, what is it?
Toques Alagundoye:Ignorance is bliss, you know, but that's just not true.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, in this case, knowledge is power.
Toques Alagundoye:You need to know what's going on with your body so that you can figure out how to feel.
Toques Alagundoye:Fix that and mammograms and, you know, do a self check in the shower.
Toques Alagundoye:Make sure you're seeing your gyno once a year so that they can do a check as well.
Toques Alagundoye:Definitely.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm begging everybody to please, please do that.
Toques Alagundoye:Because the kind of cancer I had, I had triple negative, which is incredibly aggressive.
Toques Alagundoye:And had I gone possibly even a couple of months later, I might not be here right now.
Rip Esselstyn:Right, right.
Rip Esselstyn:Are you, I know that you're for the most part vegan slash, you know, plant based.
Rip Esselstyn:Are you on any particular eating regiment with within that vegan, plant based world, per the recommendation of your nutritionist or anybody?
Toques Alagundoye:No.
Toques Alagundoye:So, you know, my doctors were very perplexed because I'm so healthy, you know, I don't drink, I don't do any kinds of drugs.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't, you know, I exercise all the time.
Toques Alagundoye:I don't smoke.
Toques Alagundoye:I'm, I'm so healthy.
Toques Alagundoye:And they were shocked.
Toques Alagundoye:They were absolutely shocked that I, I was sick, you know, and, I mean, the one place that I wasn't healthy is that I stressed all the time and stress, you know, that's just if.
Rip Esselstyn:I could add in there, too, because in watching some clips of you, I remember you saying that for almost three years, you were getting like 4 hours of sleep a night.
Rip Esselstyn:And sleep deprivation is brutal.
Rip Esselstyn:Brutal.
Toques Alagundoye:If I had to guess, that's what did it.
Toques Alagundoye:I had, I didn't have postpartum, but I just, I'm a worrywart and I just worried about my kid all the time.
Toques Alagundoye:I just always thought he was going to die in the middle of the night.
Toques Alagundoye:It's just a thing I had.
Toques Alagundoye:And I just could not sleep.
Toques Alagundoye:I couldn't do it.
Toques Alagundoye:I could not sleep.
Toques Alagundoye:My body would not do it.
Toques Alagundoye:And thankfully, I'm in therapy, and finally my therapist, you know, he'd wanted me to go on something and go on something, and I wouldn't do it because I was breastfeeding.
Toques Alagundoye:I breastfed my kid till he was almost three years old, and I was just like, nah, I don't want to be putting any poison in my body because of my kid.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, finally I did go on something which finally relaxed me now so I could actually sleep through the night.
Toques Alagundoye:And I love my sleep.
Toques Alagundoye:I love my sleep.
Toques Alagundoye:And now I prioritize a minimum of 8 hours of sleep.
Rip Esselstyn:Good for you.
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah, it's definitely incredibly important.
Toques Alagundoye:And another thing I didn't do, actually, is I didn't play enough.
Toques Alagundoye:I was like, work, work, work, you know, and now we do family vacations all the time, even if it's just like, sometimes we'll just, like, rent a house by the beach and go to the beach for three days, you know, like, even if it's just something like that.
Toques Alagundoye:It's so nice and relaxing, and I definitely feel a difference in my quality of life because of it.
Toques Alagundoye:We have to learn.
Toques Alagundoye:Society does not support that.
Toques Alagundoye:It doesn't support, like, playing and relaxing, and it's just as important as anything else.
Toques Alagundoye:It really is.
Rip Esselstyn:Where would you say you've always been until you've kind of come to this epiphany and one of the gifts you've gotten from cancer?
Rip Esselstyn:Have you always been a bit of a workaholic?
Toques Alagundoye:Oh, yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Absolute overachiever.
Rip Esselstyn:Where do you think that comes from?
Toques Alagundoye:It.
Toques Alagundoye:It definitely has a lot to do with the way I was raised.
Toques Alagundoye:Nigerians, we are achievers, period.
Toques Alagundoye:End of story.
Toques Alagundoye:My mother was a high achiever.
Toques Alagundoye:She's norwegian.
Toques Alagundoye:She was a very high achiever.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, my dad went to Harvard, Yale at Mitz, you know, like, that's what I come from.
Rip Esselstyn:I've never heard of those schools.
Toques Alagundoye:I know that.
Toques Alagundoye:I mean, he's an idiot, really, but, yeah, so, so, like, you know, and.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was never.
Toques Alagundoye:There was no, you know, I was.
Toques Alagundoye: I was born in: Toques Alagundoye:There was no.
Toques Alagundoye:Let me help you with my homework.
Toques Alagundoye:There was no do I, you know, do you have homework today?
Toques Alagundoye:Like, do it, do it well, get a's.
Toques Alagundoye:I also, you know, was an athlete.
Toques Alagundoye:I also danced.
Toques Alagundoye:I also played and competed and flew.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, I did everything all the time.
Toques Alagundoye:And it had to be the best.
Toques Alagundoye:And I never got any.
Toques Alagundoye:There was never any.
Toques Alagundoye:Okay, well done, or let's go celebrate that.
Toques Alagundoye:It was like, okay, great.
Toques Alagundoye:You achieved that.
Toques Alagundoye:Next.
Toques Alagundoye:So that's kind of how I did.
Toques Alagundoye:I never learned to, like, stop and enjoy that I did something and congratulate myself, and it's not my parents fault.
Toques Alagundoye:That's just the way things were, you know, and I I think especially, you know, being a black girl who's going to be a black woman.
Toques Alagundoye:My dad knew it was going to be rough for me.
Toques Alagundoye:My dad never treated me the way that a lot of other girls are treated.
Toques Alagundoye:There was never anything that he told me I couldn't do or wasn't capable of, you know?
Toques Alagundoye:And so, you know, I did do well at everything, and so I just kept on pushing and pushing and achieving and pushing and achieving and pushing.
Toques Alagundoye:In any downtime felt like laziness.
Toques Alagundoye:So I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.
Toques Alagundoye:And on the one hand, yay, great, thank God.
Toques Alagundoye:Because I've gotten to a great place in my career and in my life in general because of all the pushing and the standards I have and the fact that I, you know, I will surmount any obstacle and all of that, but I never learned how to relax and enjoy.
Rip Esselstyn:So you're.
Rip Esselstyn:You're approaching 50.
Rip Esselstyn:You just turned 49.
Rip Esselstyn:But as you're kind of, you know, getting on in your life, who.
Rip Esselstyn:Who are.
Rip Esselstyn:Who are some of the people that have been heroes, that have really liked, helped shape and transform who you are?
Toques Alagundoye:My parents definitely, you know, the people I've spent the most time with, but also my manager has been, like, my second mother for the last, gosh, 15 years.
Toques Alagundoye:Wow.
Toques Alagundoye:She's three decades older than I am, two decades older than I am.
Toques Alagundoye:And I listen to her a lot.
Toques Alagundoye:She's a wise woman.
Toques Alagundoye:We hang out a lot, and I take a lot of.
Toques Alagundoye:She knows a lot more about this industry than I do, I would say, for the most part.
Toques Alagundoye:There was an actress named Ruby Dee.
Toques Alagundoye:She was married to Aussie Davis, and she was one of the very first black actresses to do a lot of film.
Toques Alagundoye:And she was a big activist, and she was one of the most wonderful human beings I have ever known.
Toques Alagundoye:She's very kind, very giving, very thoughtful, very intentional in everything that she did.
Rip Esselstyn:So you had the good fortune of working with her?
Toques Alagundoye:I did.
Toques Alagundoye:We were in a show together in New York that did two runs in New York and one run in Atlanta.
Toques Alagundoye:And I was fortunate enough that even though they replaced some of the people and the other two, she had me come with her.
Toques Alagundoye:And so I spent a lot of time with her, especially when we were in Atlanta.
Toques Alagundoye:And because, you know, I'd walk her to her apartment afterwards and sit with her for about an hour or two and we'd just chat and she'd tell me these stories.
Toques Alagundoye:But also just the way that she moved through the industry and the world.
Toques Alagundoye:I learned a lot from her in just so much grace and graciousness and the way that she considered others.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, she was not a selfish woman by any stretch, stretch of the imagination.
Toques Alagundoye:And it.
Toques Alagundoye:She really solidified in me that one of the best ways that you can be is to really be observant of those who are around you and inclusive and considerate and caring.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, she made everything better wherever she was.
Toques Alagundoye:And I think of her every single day.
Toques Alagundoye:Every single day.
Toques Alagundoye:I think of her every single day.
Toques Alagundoye:Sometimes I'll be like, God, how would Ms.
Toques Alagundoye:Dee have handled this?
Toques Alagundoye:How do I think she would?
Toques Alagundoye:You know, and then, honestly, I have really curated my chosen family.
Toques Alagundoye:The people who I am around.
Toques Alagundoye:Like, you know, I went out to dinner last night with my closest friends here.
Toques Alagundoye:They are people who come from completely different walks of life.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, they're not people who I all met together.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, they are all kind, caring, thoughtful, happy people who are easy to be around, easy to be friends with, thoughtful, you know, and I get, I am shaped by those friendships because it's a constant giving on both sides, you know, and being, you know, having friends who if you can't make it somewhere or, you know, with what I do, that happens all the time.
Toques Alagundoye:All of a sudden I have a job.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, it's none of this like, taking it personally or nitpicking or whatever.
Toques Alagundoye:It's, oh, my God, good for you.
Toques Alagundoye:That's great.
Toques Alagundoye:Totally understand.
Toques Alagundoye:Or, you know, someone could just be like, oh, I can't go to dinner tonight, I'm tired.
Toques Alagundoye:And, you know, the other person is like, well, I'd rather you rest.
Toques Alagundoye:That's fine.
Toques Alagundoye:Thank you for telling me.
Toques Alagundoye:You know, so being shaped by those relationships and I guess also honestly, my therapist, you know, I've been with the same therapist for eleven years and he is a big part of my life, you know, he's really changed it for the better.
Rip Esselstyn:Yeah.
Rip Esselstyn:Well, from my vantage point from where I'm sitting in Austin, Texas, it seems like things are going really well for you and you're in a great place.
Rip Esselstyn:A lot of gratitude, an incredible, loving, caring husband, a beautiful son, a manager who loves the dickens out of you and is watching out for you.
Rip Esselstyn:You've just landed on Frasier, you know, incredible parents, way to, way to be, way to be your 50th year.
Rip Esselstyn:It's really wonderful.
Rip Esselstyn:I really appreciate you coming on the planet strong podcast for being so open about, about your journey with breast cancer.
Rip Esselstyn:And, you know, I want to close out with a quote that you gave.
Rip Esselstyn:I think it was at a little press event that you did for Fraser, and you said that if laughter is medicine, then I'm heavily medicated.
Rip Esselstyn:We all could use more laughter, more fun, more play in our lives.
Rip Esselstyn:So way to be.
Toques Alagundoye:Thank you for having me.
Toques Alagundoye:Thank you so much.
Rip Esselstyn:Absolutely.
Rip Esselstyn:Can you give me a virtual plant strong fist bump?
Toques Alagundoye:Yeah.
Toques Alagundoye:Boom.
Rip Esselstyn:All right.
Rip Esselstyn:Thank you.
Rip Esselstyn:Thank you.
Toques Alagundoye:Toque.
Toques Alagundoye:Thanks.
Toques Alagundoye:Take care.
Rip Esselstyn:Okay, the new season of Frasier is out now on Paramount plus.
Rip Esselstyn:So check it out.
Rip Esselstyn:If you're anything like me and you used to be a fan of Frasier back in the day, this might be a really nice walk down memory lane.
Rip Esselstyn:If you are on Instagram, toques posts a lot of beneficial information on her Instagram account, so I'll be sure to link up to that so you can follow her in today's show notes.
Rip Esselstyn:I'm really grateful that she was able to take time from her shooting schedule and speak to us during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Rip Esselstyn:Up next week on the Plant Strong podcast, Doctor Don Musalem, a little ray of sunshine joins us from the Mayo Clinic to talk about some of the outstanding research and studies that show definitively the benefits of a whole food plant based diet in the prevention, treatment, and healing of a cancer diagnosis.
Rip Esselstyn:It's an episode that you won't want to miss.
Rip Esselstyn:But until then, all, always, always keep it.
Rip Esselstyn:Plan strong.
Rip Esselstyn:The Plan Strong podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Lori Cordowicz, and Amy Mackey.
Rip Esselstyn:If you like what you hear, do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones.
Rip Esselstyn:You can always leave a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
Rip Esselstyn:And while you're there, make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode.
Rip Esselstyn:As always, this and every episode is dedicated to my parents, Dr.
Rip Esselstyn:Caldwell B.
Rip Esselstyn:Esselstyn, Jr.
Rip Esselstyn:And Anne Kreil Esselstyn.
Rip Esselstyn:Thanks so much for listening.