By Michaela Gordoni
After MASK OF ZORRO star Antonio Banderas suffered a heart attack, he decided to leave Hollywood for good.
Now, he lives in his hometown of Málaga, Spain, Closer Weekly reported.
“It changed the way I look at life,” he explained. “Faced with death, it made me look back and realize that I am, in fact, a theatre actor.”
“It made me appreciate life in a completely different way and in a much more powerful way,” he said on the THIS MORNING show in 2023. “It changed my life entirely and completely for good.”
Banderas experienced the heart attack in 2017 while exercising, PEOPLE reported. After, Banderas sold his private jet, some US real estate, quit smoking and purchased a non-profit theater in southern Spain.
Related: Antonio Banderas Says Heart Attack Transformed His Life ‘For Good’
“The opportunity arose to buy this venue, a former cinema, which was in a state of disrepair and full of asbestos. It was awful. So I cleared it out and built it inside its shell,” he said.
“It keeps me in touch with my roots, my neighborhood, my people. I haven’t lost that connection over the years. Quite the opposite,” he explained.
The locals have nicknamed him “José Hollywood,” and he’s never been happier.
His reflections post-heart attack has made him more grateful for what he has.
“After Covid, kids were asking themselves, ‘Why can’t we go to school?’ It was there in the environment. We took a chance to reflect,” he said.
“Kids, they know more than we think. They understand and it’s good to reflect with them on these issues,” he said. “What they are learning at the end is to praise life, how wonderful life is. Life is a beautiful thing, we have only one and we have to take care of it.”
He still thinks the heart attack was one of the “best” things that’s happened to him.
“Because the things that were not important and I was worried every day about them, meaningless,” the actor told Vanity Fair. “I was like, ‘Why am I worried about that if I’m going to die?’ I knew always [that I was going to die], but now I know. I’ve seen it right here.”
It has helped him detach from “things that I thought were important before but weren’t really.” He added that he’s “a very positive person by nature. My depressions last five minutes, I bounce back immediately.”
It’s wonderful that Banderas has a newfound appreciation for life.
Read Next: Antonio Banderas, Olivia Colman to Join Cast of PADDINGTON 3
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
Share:
– Content: +2