Hollywood iconAl Pacinohas recalled the moment he actually died after suffering a bad reaction to a steroid treatment for Covid-19. ThelegendaryScarfaceactorrecently spoke withThe New York Timesabout a number of topics, and one of them included his temporary “death” in 2020 when he caught the Coronavirus infection.
While many people have died due to the virus over the last four years, Pacino was luckily not one of them. He did, though, speak in depth about his experiences with “the other side,” or more precisely, the lack of “other side” that there was to experience. The Oscar-winner explained:
“It was so — you’re here, you’re not. I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge. What happened was, I felt not good — unusually not good. Then I had a fever, and I was getting dehydrated and all that. 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. It was kind of shocking to open your eyes and see that. Everybody was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here.'”
Al Pacino Says That Death is Simply ‘No More.’
There are many debates centered on the subject of death and what comes after. For many people, their beliefs about what death means comes from the teachings of their religion, or lack of it, but for Pacino, he now believes that he knows what death holds for us.
“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?”
Al Pacino’s 9 Oscar-Nominated Movie Roles, Ranked
Did you know that Al Pacino, one of the greatest living actors, only has one Oscar win under his belt?
The actor himself has no fear of dying – and having done so once doesn’t appear to have changed that in any way. In his own words,“It’s just the way it is.”However, after overcoming his ordeal, the actor has plenty of reasons to stick around for a while yet. Since his near-death experience in 2020, Pacino has not been taking it easy and his recent list of credits includes playing Aldo Gucci inThe House of Gucci, Mayer Offerman in 18 episodes of the TV seriesHunters, and as Xavier Crane in the Michael Keaton movieKnox Goes Away. With a new son in his life, and several new movies in various stages of production, includingthe Johnny Depp directedModi: Three Days on the Wing of Madness,and the dramaBilly Knight.
