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Al Pacino has revealed he nearly died of Covid-19 in 2020, saying he “didn’t have a pulse” for several minutes.
In interviews with the New York Times and People magazine published over the weekend, the 84-year-old Godfather and Scarface actor detailed his experience with the virus, which was caught in 2020 before a vaccine was available.
“They said my pulse was gone. It was like that – you’re here, you’re not. I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge,” Pacino told the New York Times.
The actor said he “felt not well – unusually not well”, and remembers having a fever and dehydration before losing consciousness. “I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I had no pulse,” he said.
An ambulance arrived and he woke up to a medical team in his living room including six paramedics and two doctors. “They had these outfits that looked like they were from outer space or something,” he said. “It was quite a shock to open your eyes and see that. Everyone was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here.”
Speaking to People, Pacino questioned whether he was really dead, although a nurse confirmed his lack of a pulse. “I thought I had experienced death. Maybe I wouldn’t have … I don’t think I died. Everyone thought I was dead. How could I be dead? If I had died, I would have fainted.”
The Oscar winner told the New York Times that he hadn’t “seen the white light or anything” and that “there’s nothing there” after death – although the experience prompted some existential reflection.
“As Hamlet says, ‘I be or not to be’; ‘The undiscovered land from which no traveler comes.’ And he says two words: ‘No more’. There was no more. You are gone. I had never thought about it in my life,” Pacino said. “But you know actors: it sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there is no more?”
Asked by People if his brush with death had changed how he lives, he replied: “Not at all.”
Pacino details the experience in his upcoming memoir, Sonny Boy. His latest film – Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness – premiered last week at the 72nd San Sebastián film festival.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
source link https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/07/al-pacino-covid-almost-died-nyt-interview
