Nicolas Winding Refn Breaks Down in Tears as He Recalls Dying for 25 Minutes Due to a ‘Leaking Heart’ and Coming Back to Life: ‘How Many People Get a Second Chance?’

Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn broke down in tears during the Cannes press conference for his new film “Her Private Hell,” recalling how he died for 25 minutes three years ago and then came back to life.

Refn, who is making his feature film return with “Her Private Hell” after 10 years, said he had given up on movie-making until he faced death. “Before I died, I had come to the end of my career because I didn’t have anything left in me,” he said. “So, there was nothing for me to do.”

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Refn was told that he had a “leaking heart,” which was “discovered by accident.” “Suddenly, I was told that I would probably not live, but if I did they didn’t know what would happen. So, two weeks later I was operated on.”

He joked: “Thank God the surgeon was Tom Cruise and he could fix me with his hands, and then he brought me back to life with electricity.”

Refn then began to cry as he spoke about the new lease on life the experience has given him. “I realized before I died that I’d been given a gift, I could start over again. Like how many people get a second chance? And I got a second chance from God. And I could use that for good,” he said, with tears streaming down his face.

“Her Private Hell” premiered at Cannes on Monday night to a seven-minute ovation. The horror-thriller stars Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada and Hidetoshi Nishijima.

A neon-tinted fever dream, “Her Private Hell” stars Thatcher as a tortured movie star who must confront her daddy issues when her best friend marries her father. At the same time, a mysterious presence — known only as the Leather Man — and an Army private (Melton) seeks vengeance after his own daughter goes missing.

Later on in the conference, Refn was also asked for his thoughts on AI, a topic which has dominated this year’s Cannes. Refn said that he isn’t opposed to using it as as tool for creativity, and teased its involvement in a future project.

“Having now tried it on something later on that may show here, I really love the creativity. For me, it’s like a brush,” he said. “And obviously, no one really knows all the implications of what this is going to do and what’s going to happen, but from the perspective of creativity it’s a new invention. And then it’s what you’re going to do with it.”