Shannen Doherty Shares Her Goals for the New Year as She Continues to Battle Stage 4 Cancer (Exclusive)

Shannen Doherty is looking forward to 2022. ET's Nischelle Turner spoke to Doherty ahead of the premiere of her new film, Fortress, and she talked about returning to the big screen, her health and her goals for the new year.

"If I were dreaming of what would happen in 2022, I think lot more research and progression as far as finding the cure for cancer is my ultimate, ultimate dream because even though I am thriving and I’m doing well, I still have cancer and you don’t want stage four, but I have it and so I think in the back of my mind, this constant sort of OK, 'What can I do to help bring more awareness, what can I do the help raise money, what can I do to sort of push research for not just myself but for everybody else who is suffering from cancer?'" Doherty shared.

While that is her ultimate goal for 2022, Doherty said that realistically, she just hopes her health remains stable as she continues to battle stage 4 cancer in the coming year.

She continued, "Realistically, I hope that my health just continues to be stable and that I continue the relationships with my husband and my mom and my friends and and I hope their work continues to grow and it only gets better. ... I just I hope that next year, work-wise continues. I hope I continue to get these opportunities and that I continue to work with people that I've always admired and wanted to work with."

While Doherty has a few career goals lined up for the new year, 2021 hasn't been so shabby for the 50-year-old actress. In addition to starring alongside Bruce Willis in Fortress, Doherty ended the year with another new film, alongside Mel Gibson, as well as a new Lifetime movie, called List of Lifetime, which earned her a Critics Choice Award nomination.

"I'm doing great and I feel great. I I feel really blessed, this year's been kind of an interesting year for me because work is so important to me and especially as somebody with cancer, you want to constantly put it out there that you know you're so hirable, you're so employable and that oftentimes for people like myself, it's the work that helps drive us," she explained. "It's the work that I wake up in the morning so excited to go create, and do my job, which is a job that I actually love, and this year’s just been phenomenal. I've done a lot of work, a movie that I did for Lifetime called List of Lifetime just got nominated this morning for a Critics Choice Award, so that's pretty special."

In her latest film, Doherty plays General Dobbs, a female general who finds herself in a fortress up against a retired CIA agent, played by Willis -- and the two quickly go head-to-head, but that spark created a connection on-screen that made for some pretty great movie magic.

"Bruce was amazing, I mean we had really this one scene that we connected so hard on. There was just this moment between us where we kind of didn't even say any of the dialogue and we just improvised the entire thing and it was incredibly special for me," Doherty revealed. "I will always sort of look at that experience as I got to work with a huge action star, and somebody whose every single one of one of his movies I’ve seen, so I was like a little kid at the candy store. Honestly, I was like, oh my God it's just so exciting, so exciting. Still to this day I'm excited."

The role had a lot of layers for the Charmed alum, who had never played a general before taking part in the project.

"Honestly, when James [Cullen Bressack] sent me the script and was like hey, 'You're gonna play General Dobbs,' I read it and I went, 'I'm not a general. I can't do this,' and James was like, 'Are you an actor?' And I was like, 'Yeah,' and he's like, 'Then you can do it,'" she shared.

Doherty continued, "It was a lot of phone calls between the two of us of figuring out those layers exactly so that she wasn't one note, even with the twist that we can't talk about that still kind of felt a little, like, flat, so we just we sort of dug down a little bit, which again, you can go back to like, that Bruce scene of doing something like that where the audience now goes, 'Oh my God, wow they must have had like a really good relationship back in the day and this really matters to her and it matters to him.' So we were able to find those layers, we were able to find a little bit of her backstory and what could possibly have happened to her and why she ends up at the fortress, and what it means to her to also be a female and a general in that environment."

See it all go down when Fortress hits theaters, on demand and digital, Dec. 17. 

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