Antonio Banderas’ 2017 heart attack helped him reprioritize the important things in life.
“I realized that it probably was one of the best things that ever happened in my life because the things that were not important and I was worried every day about them, meaningless,” he exclusively tells Page Six.
“I was like, why am I worried about that if I’m going to die?” he explains. “I knew always [that I was going to die], but now I know. I’ve seen it right here.”
He adds that the important things like his daughter Stella, whom he shares with Melanie Griffith, his friends, family and his “vocation as an actor” stayed and he began to detach from “things that I thought were important before but weren’t really.”
The Spanish-born actor, 62, suffered a heart attack in January 2017 and credits his longtime girlfriend Nicole Kimpel for saving his life when she reacted quickly, giving him an aspirin.
In March of that year, he said it wasn’t serious and didn’t cause any serious damage, but he did undergo a procedure to insert three stents into his arteries.
“It hasn’t been as dramatic as some have written,” he told press at the time.
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Banderas will soon be heard reprising his role as the rapscallion feline in “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” in which Puss discovers that he has burnt through eight of his nine lives and embarks on a quest to find the mythical last wish.
The Oscar nominee shares that he’s had down moments in his life, too, but they don’t last long as he’s “a very positive person by nature. My depressions last five minutes, I bounce back immediately.”
Banderas — who is currently appearing on stage in Madrid in “Company” — also hints that he’s planning a long-awaited return to Broadway after winning a Tony in 2003 for “Nine.”
“Something has been written as we talk,” he teases, adding that the character will make sense for his Iberian accent.
“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” opens in theaters on Dec. 21.
