Antonio Banderas has opened up about why the heart attack he suffered in 2017 ultimately changed his life for the better.
The 65-year-old actor was at his home in Surrey, England, when he began feeling pain in his chest. It quickly became clear that he was experiencing a heart attack.
Just a few months later, while speaking at a film festival in his hometown of Malaga, Banderas shared: “I suffered a heart attack on January 26, but it wasn’t serious and hasn’t caused any damage.”
He has also credited his girlfriend, Nicole Kimpel, with helping save his life that day after she gave him aspirin as the symptoms began.
“I started having the symptoms and I clearly knew what was going on, she put one of those aspirins inside of my tongue and that saved my life,” Banderas recalled on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Not long after that, paramedics arrived and took him to hospital for urgent treatment.
At the hospital, doctors carried out emergency surgery and inserted three stents into his arteries.
The experience became a major turning point for Banderas. In the aftermath, he made significant changes to his life, including giving up smoking and selling his private jet. He also moved back to Spain so he could be closer to his family and pursue his lifelong passion for theater.
For that reason, he has described the ordeal as the “best thing that ever happened” to him.
In a recent interview with PEOPLE, he said: “You always have in your mind that you’re going to die. But then when you have it so close, it’s an unbelievably clear reminder of how stupid you are losing time over things that don’t deserve to be in your life.
“My heart attack was the best thing that ever happened in my life. It was like somebody put glasses on me so I could see the reality that I didn’t see before.”
After recovering and being given the all-clear, Banderas went on to take a role in the biopic Tony, which premiered in August 2026 based on the life of the late chef Anthony Bourdain. In the film, Banderas plays Ciro, a Brazilian-born restaurateur and mentor to the young Bourdain during a formative summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts in the 1970s.
Discussing the film, Banderas told PEOPLE: “I didn’t know Anthony Bourdain personally, but I thought that [Bourdain’s travelogue series No Reservations] was a beautiful show that was not actually about cooking, but life.
“And then my character [Ciro Cozzi, Bourdain’s mentor], he was a good man. He was somebody who has something to say. And I have several restaurants, so I am a little bit in that world, too. It’s almost impossible to say no to a project like this.”
Since his return to his native Málaga, Banderas has become increasingly involved in both business and cultural ventures. He is part owner of several restaurants throughout southern Spain, including El Pimpi—the legendary historic bodega in Málaga—as well as La Sole del Pimpi and La Pérgola del Mediterráneo. Most significantly, he founded and operates Teatro del Soho CaixaBank in his hometown, a non-profit private theater venue where he has directed and produced several Broadway musicals including “A Chorus Line,” “Company,” and “Tocando Nuestra Canción.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Banderas spoke warmly about his late father, calling him ‘compassionate’ and describing him as his ‘mentor’.
He went on to explain how that outlook has shaped the way he sees his own children: “It’s a way of understanding life. With my kids, it’s just love.
“I see them blossoming and becoming good people, and I’m so proud of them.”
In a 2026 interview with The Times, Banderas reflected on how his near-fatal health scare transformed his perspective. “Faced with death, it made me look back and realise that I am, in fact, a theater actor,” he said, emphasizing that his heart attack redirected him toward his true passion. He added that he is now “never been so happy” living in Spain with his longtime partner Nicole Kimpel.