Veteran actor Sir John Hurt has said his cancer treatment is “going terrifically well” and he continues to be “optimistic”.

Speaking to the Radio Times magazine, the star said: “I can’t say I worry about mortality, but it’s impossible to get to my age and not have a little contemplation of it.

“We’re all just passing time, and occupy our chair very briefly. But my treatment is going terrifically well, so I’m optimistic.”

The British actor, 75, has been nominated for two Oscars, for The Elephant Man and Midnight Express, and he enjoyed a big hit with sci-fi horror Alien in 1979.

I can’t say I worry about mortality, but it’s impossible to get to my age and not have a little contemplation of it

He has been busy in recent months filming the new Tarzan with Samuel L Jackson and Margot Robbie. He also starred in a special 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who.

Hurt, who played Caligula in the celebrated BBC drama I, Claudius also made his name with a series of stage roles.

On the big screen, he played Mr Ollivander, a wand merchant, in several Harry Potter films. Other recent movies include V for Vendetta (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and Hercules (2014).

Other roles have included his performance as Stephen Ward – a key figure in the Profumo affair – in Scandal and a reprisal of his role as Crisp for An Englishman in New York in 2009, 34 years after his original portrayal of the flamboyant figure.

His distinctive voice has been used several times as narrator, and accompanied a chilling Aids awareness advertising campaign in the 1980s.