‘I Didn’t Have a Pulse’

Al Pacino revealed on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast that he lost his pulse during a near-death experience with COVID-19 during the 2020 pandemic. The Oscar winner said the infection led to dehydration and “my pulse was gone. 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,” Pacino explained. “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,” he continued. “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.’”

When asked if his brush with death led to any “metaphysical ripples,” Pacino said: “I didn’t see the white light or anything. 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 is making the press rounds in support of his upcoming memoir “Sonny Boy,” publishing Oct. 15. The actor most recently appeared in Johnny Depp’s directorial effort “Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness,” which premiered at this year’s San Sebastian Film Festival. Upcoming roles for the Oscar winner include “Lear Rex,” a new “King Lear” adaptation co-starring Jessica Chastain and the horror movie “The Ritual.”

Head over to The New York Times’ website to listen to Pacino’s “The Interview” discussion in its entirety.