Al Pacino has revealed he had a brush with death in 2020, after contracting Covid in the early stages of the pandemic.
Over the weekend, the New York Times published an interview with the Oscar winner in which he opened up about his near death experience.
The Scarface actor revealed he had been feeling “unusually not good” and was experiencing severe fever and dehydration, and at one point “didn’t have a pulse”.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
Speaking separately to People magazine, the 84-year-old recalled that “everybody thought I was dead” in the medical incident, sharing: “I thought I experienced death. I might not have. I don’t think I have, really. I know I made it.”
In his New York Times interview, Pacino said his feelings about life and death have evolved as he has aged.
“It’s natural, I guess, to have a different view of death as you get older,” he explained. “It’s just the way it is. I didn’t ask for it. [It] just comes, like a lot of things just come.”
However, he told People that the medical episode has not changed the way he lives his life, offering a simple “not at all” when asked if that were the case.
Al Pacino’s memoir Sonny Boy is released on 15 October.