Al Pacino reveals he almost died in 2020: “I didn’t have a pulse”

"I didn’t see the white light or anything. There’s nothing there"

Al Pacino has revealed that he nearly died of COVID-19 in 2020, even temporarily losing a pulse.

The legendary actor announced details of his “astonishingly revelatory” memoir Sonny Boy back in March, which is set for release on Tuesday (October 8). Visit here to pre-order the memoir.

In an interview with the New York Times ahead of the book’s release, Pacino shared that he had a near-death experience during the pandemic. “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,” he told the publication.

“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.'”

Pacino was then asked if the experience had any “metaphysical ripples” on him, to which he responded: “It actually did. 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 traveller 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?”

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The actor went on to explain that, with age, his perspective on death has evolved, saying: “It’s just the way it is. I didn’t ask for it. Just comes, like a lot of things just come.”

Sonny Boy will be published by Penguin Random House and has been described in a press release as the “memoir of a man who has nothing left to fear and nothing left to hide.” The statement continues, calling the book “an astonishingly revelatory account of a creative life in full.”

The memoir will cover the legendary actor’s childhood in New York, his upbringing with his “fiercely loving but mentally unwell mother and her parents”, his crew of friends in the Bronx along with the years he spent attending New York’s fabled High School of Performing Arts.

Pacino will also discuss his work in New York’s avant-garde theatre scene in the ’60s and ’70s before his major movie break with The Panic of Needle Park, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.

Speaking of Sonny Boy in a press release, Pacino said: “It has been an incredibly personal and revealing experience to reflect on this journey and what acting has allowed me to do and the worlds it has opened up. My whole life has been a moonshot, and I’ve been a pretty lucky guy so far.”

In other news, Pacino is set to play a Mafia boss once again in a new kidnapping thriller. He made his name playing mob bosses and gangsters in films like The Godfather, The Irishman, and Scarface, and now will play a real-life mob boss in the film Captivated.

Shooting is due to start later this winter in Italy. The director will be Dito Montiel (Man Down) who co-wrote the script with Robin Shushan and Mammoliti.