Puss in Boots: The Last Wish star Antonio Banderas, who suffered a heart attack in 2017, recalled in a recent interview with Page Six that he had put the experience of a new outlook on life behind him.
Banderas, who stars in the latest addition to the Shrek film series, revealed his perspective after the heart attack, which he says wasn’t serious and caused no damage in 2017.
The Puss in Boots star, who was reportedly put in stents in his arteries following the heart attack, told the publication the experience was “probably one of the best things” in his life.
“I realized that it was probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me, because the things that didn’t matter and that I worried about every day were meaningless,” Banderas said.
“I thought, why do I worry about this if I’m going to die? I always knew it [that I was going to die], but now I know. I saw it here.”
Antonio Banderas attends the premiere of “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” at Jazz at Lincoln Center Frederick P. Rose Hall December 13 in New York.Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Banderas said his friends, family — including his daughter Stella and his “calling as an actor” — stayed after the heart attack while he ditched other things from things that he “before thought were important but really weren’t.”
The actor has been open about his heart attack over the years, telling The Associated Press that filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar – with whom he worked on the Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated film Pain and Glory – told him he was supposed to “don’t hide that thing” when they made the film.
“I knew exactly what he was talking about because after a heart attack you get a lot of information about what life is about that is very difficult to put into words, but it just created a new way of understanding life itself ‘ Banderas told the news service in 2019.