- Oscar-winning icon reveals he “didn’t have a pulse” during near-death experience in 2020
- The 84-year-old’s memoir ‘Sonny Boy’ is released this month
- Pacino says his view of death has changed as he’s gotten older
Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.
Al Pacino has revealed in a new interview with the New York Times how he was left without a pulse after suffering from a severe bout of Covid-19 during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The 84-year-old, who became a father for the fourth time last year, explained during the interview how he had felt unwell, coming down with a fever and dehydration.
“So, I got someone to get me a nurse to hydrate me. I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn’t have a pulse. In a matter of minutes they were there — the ambulance in front of my house. I had about six paramedics in that living room, and there were two doctors, and they had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something.”
Fortunately for the man who immortalised the likes of Michael Corleone, Tony Montana, Vincent Hanna and Ricky Roma on the silver screen, paramedics were almost immediately on hand to bring the Academy Award winner back from the brink.
“Everybody was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here,’”
When asked during the interview if the experience had left any “metaphysical ripples” Pacino responded, “There’s nothing there. As Hamlet says, ‘To be or not to be’; ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.’ And he says two words: ‘No more,’. It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life. But you know actors: It sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?”
Pacino, of course, was not the only legendary actor to be struck down with Covid, as Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson both contracted the virus while Hanks was filming ‘Elvis’ in Australia.
In the four year since his near death experience, Pacino has remained ludicrously busy for a man of his age, not only becoming a father at the age of 83, but also starring in House of Gucci in 2021, Hunters on Amazon Prime, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination and Johnny Depp’s recent Modigliani biography, which will be released later this month.
On top of all this, the Serpico star has eight more projects listed as ‘in development’ on IMDB. Not bad for a man entering his mid-eighties who was almost killed by a respiratory virus four years ago.
