A life-threatening moment forced a dramatic reset for Antonio Banderas — and nearly a decade later, he says he hasn’t looked back.
According to Page Six, the 65-year-old actor left behind the glitz of Hollywood and returned to his roots in Málaga, Spain, in 2017, a decision he now credits to a wake-up call that reshaped his priorities.
“Mine was a really serious warning,” he said of the heart attack in an interview with the Times published Wednesday. “It changed the way I look at life.”
Before that moment, Banderas had been splitting his time between the United States and the United Kingdom, maintaining a high-end lifestyle that included a mansion in Cobham, Surrey.
But everything shifted after his health scare.
He quit smoking, sold his private jet, and moved back to Málaga, where he immersed himself in a different kind of life — one centered on creativity and personal fulfillment.
“Faced with death, it made me look back and realize that I am, in fact, a theatre actor,” he explained.
Today, Banderas lives in a flat with his longtime girlfriend, Nicole Kimpel, and has built a quieter but purposeful existence. He owns several restaurants, but his primary focus is his not-for-profit theater, Teatro del Soho.
“I have never been so happy,” he noted.
The actor also reflected on his rise to international fame, recalling early doubts about his ability to succeed in English-language films. Those insecurities, he said, faded during his marriage to Melanie Griffith, whom he divorced in 2015 after 18 years together.
Early in his career, Banderas said he was often told that, as a Spaniard, he would be limited to villain roles. He pushed back against that perception with films like “The Mask of Zorro.”
“The problem was a few years later I had a mask, hat, sword and cape and the bad guy was Captain Love, who was blond and had blue eyes,” he said.
He also pointed to his role in “Puss in Boots” as especially meaningful.
“Even more important is [his 2011 film] ‘Puss in Boots,’ because it’s for young kids. They see a cat that has a Spanish, even an Andalusian accent and he’s a good guy.”
Looking back, Banderas described his heart attack in surprisingly positive terms.
“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 explained.
“I was like, why am I worried about that if I’m going to die?” he recalled. “I knew always [that I was going to die], but now I know. I’ve seen it right here.”
