Tim Curry reflects on life-altering stroke: “Way too close to death”
Tim Curry has opened up about the life-altering stroke he suffered in 2012, revealing that it brought him “way too close to death”.
The actor was speaking in a new interview with The New York Times ahead of the release of his memoir Vagabond, in which he gave an insight into the major medical event which changed the course of his life 13 years ago.
Noting bleakly how it brought him “way too close to death,” Curry then reflected: “It’s a curious experience. I didn’t know it was happening at the time. They told me at the hospital and operated on my brain and removed, I think, two blood clots, which is a sort of grim picture.”
Explaining how this brush with mortality changed him, the actor added, “I found that very difficult to cope with as an image. There’s a German play called Danton’s Death where he says, ‘If you cut off the top of my head and paddled around in my brains, you would never know me.’ And it felt like somebody had paddled around in my brain.”
However, as Curry then ventured on the road to recovery, there were many challenges which presented themselves along the way, especially when it came to regaining his ability to talk. “It was very peculiar not to be able to speak, and to find a voice again was difficult,” he admitted.
Despite this, the actor did relearn how to talk over time and has used this to further his career in the years since by predominantly featuring on voiceover work.
Subsequently, when asked how he underwent this process of therapy to regain his voice, Curry simply said “It just sort of crept back,” before branding it “My major instrument.”
Curry’s new memoir, Vagabond, is released on October 14th.
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