Patrick Swayze's The Beast costars say working with the cancer-stricken actor was an inspiration -- and they have no doubt he'll recover after being hospitalized for pneumonia on Friday.
"You're working 12 hours a day and usually most of us would get tired before he would," actor Vincent Angell said at a press event for the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles on Friday. "You think of what this man was going through, to show up to work every day. It was ... inspiring.
"And, in light of the news today, I think, for him, [it's] a bump in the road," Angell added. "You know, he had a little sniffle, as he said on Barbara Walters. When we were shooting, he missed a day of work. I think it's, you know, like I said, a bump in the road and we're all wishing him well."
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Swayze -- who checked himself into a hospital for observation, it was revealed Friday -- revealed he has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer last year.
Costar Travis Fimmel said the actor has "been an absolute inspiration. He's amazing guy. You can't help but respect him. And I can't say enough good stuff about the guy. He makes a little thing seem so not important."
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Swayze's illness brought the costars closer together, said William Rotko.
"There's a tremendous amount of respect that's going on. And I think in this instance, dealing with this issue -- which is real -- it brought us even tighter together," he said. "For me, personally, on one little note, it would make you stop and think before you said, 'I have a tummy ache'" in the morning ... because he's toughing it out through tougher conditions."
Despite battling cancer, Rotko says another actor was never considered for Swayze's part.
"If you all watched the Barbara Walters special, you see the type of cowboy personality that he has, and that was his approach," said Rotko. "We immediately glommed on to that. We never considered another actor for the part."
