Antonio Banderas reveals why he fled Hollywood after major health scare

Antonio Banderas gave up his ritzy Hollywood manner and has zero regrets almost 10 years later.

The actor, 65, moved backmost to his location municipality — Málaga, Spain — backmost successful 2017. Banderas said it was his near-fatal bosom attack that triggered his large move.

“Mine was a really superior warning,” he said of nan bosom onslaught successful an question and reply pinch nan Times published Wednesday. “It changed nan measurement I look astatine life.”

The outlet noted that anterior to his awesome wellness scare, Banderas was surviving betwixt nan US and nan UK, and had a mansion successful Cobham, Surrey.

The “Desperado” prima past instantly discontinue smoking, sold his backstage jet, returned to Málaga and bought a theatre.

“Faced pinch death, it made maine look backmost and recognize that I am, successful fact, a theatre actor,” he explained.

Banderas now lives successful a level pinch his longtime girlfriend, Nicole Kimpel, and owns aggregate restaurants. But his not-for-profit theatre, Teatro del Soho, is his top passion.

“I person ne'er been truthful happy,” he noted.

Banderas besides reflected connected really he became a superstar successful Hollywood, sharing that his insecurities astir English not being his first connection went distant aft he joined his now ex-wife, Melanie Griffith. The 2 divorced successful 2015 aft 18 years of marriage.

He shared that while he was primitively told that arsenic a Spaniard, he could only play “the bad guys” successful films, he proved them incorrect pinch 1998’s “The Mask of Zorro.”

“The problem was a fewer years later I had a mask, hat, beard and cape and nan bad feline was Captain Love, who was blond and had bluish eyes,” he said.

He continued, “Even much important is [his 2011 film] ‘Puss successful Boots,’ because it’s for young kids. They spot a feline that has a Spanish, moreover an Andalusian accent and he’s a bully guy.”

Banderas said to Page Six successful December 2022, and said his bosom onslaught was “one of nan champion things” that ever happened to him.

“I realized that it astir apt was 1 of nan champion things that ever happened successful my life because nan things that were not important and I was worried each time astir them, meaningless,” he explained.

He told america that aft his near-death experience, he began to detach from “things that I thought were important earlier but weren’t really.”