Academy Award-winner Al Pacino has opened up about his near-death experience in 2020 battling COVID-19, saying he “didn’t have a pulse.”
The “Scarface” actor revealed his battle with the virus on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast, which was released Saturday. During the conversation, the 84-year-old actor explained feeling “unusually not good” and coming down with a fever and dehydration before asking for help from a nurse.
“I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone, like that,” Pacino said. “Absolutely gone. So then they looked at my pulse, and I didn’t have a pulse. It probably was very, very low, and they got panicked right away.”
An ambulance soon arrived, and he woke up feeling shocked to see six paramedics and two doctors in the living room surrounding him.
The “Godfather” actor said he did not see “the white light or anything” but did reflect on the near-death experience quoting Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”
“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,” Pacino said. “I don’t like that, that there’s no more. It’s gone, you’re gone. Now I started thinking about that, and 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 shared that he finds consolation in having children, along with his long history of work, which spans over half a century.
“It’s natural, I guess, to have a different view of death as you get older,” Pacino said. “It’s just the way it is. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things, just comes.”
The New York native’s most recent performances include “The Irishman,” “House of Gucci,” “Knox Goes Away” and a biopic directed by Johnny Depp “Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness” which premiered last week at the 72nd San Sebastián film festival.
Pacino is set to release his memoir “Sonny Boy” on Oct. 15, which looks at his life and decades-long career.