The Healthline Interview: Hercules' Kevin Sorbo

Greek demigod Hercules’ physical prowess was the stuff of legends. So in order to gain and maintain the title role in the widely popular TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys in the late 1990s, actor Kevin Sorbo had to stay in top physical condition. But this pillar of strength came crashing down one day when during a workout, he felt a sharp, debilitating pain shooting down his left arm. Soon he was exhibiting slurred speech, dizziness, vision loss, and numbness. Rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment, he'd only learn weeks later that he had suffered three strokes.  What scared him most though through this ordeal was the threat of being discovered — how would producers and fans accept a superhuman action star with a life-threatening condition?

15 years later, in his autobiography True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal—and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life, the star of Hercules and Gene Rodenberry’s Andromeda finally tells the tale of his nearly-fatal health crisis and his triumphant comeback, hoping to inspire others on the road from setback to recovery. Healthline caught up with Sorbo to discuss that fateful day that changed everything, his road to rehabilitation, and the role of religion in his recovery.

If you could turn back time, would you have avoided the gym on that fateful day?

The gym? No, not at all. That was just a normal routine for me every single day to go to the gym. It really didn’t have anything to do with adding fuel to the fire. I think that going to the chiropractor certainly didn’t help matters much. But I don’t blame the chiropractor, because since gaining understanding from different neurologists, my aneurysm in my left shoulder was at a point then where it was going to explode anyway. Raising my hand above my head might have been enough to force clots to enter my brain. It was just becoming a balloon that was getting too much air into it at that point.

You describe in your book how during your chiropractic visit, just preceding the strokes, you heard a voice in your head warning you against getting your neck cracked. What was the voice that you heard?

I believe it was God… no question about it. I mean why would I hear that voice? You know, I’m a Christian. I’m not a bible-banging guy. I don’t force it down people’s throats. I’m a very private person with my beliefs. But for me to lie on that table and to hear that voice that loud in my head twice. It’s like why? I’ve been seeing this guy for like eight years.  He has never ever cracked my neck. Why now was I hearing a voice that said, ‘Don’t let him crack your neck?’ And the voice knew he was going to crack my neck and sure enough he did. I was mad at him, but I got madder at myself for not listening to the voice. So I learned to listen to the voice from then on.  

Why did it take the doctors so long to diagnose your stroke?

What’s weird is that I think they were in denial as well. I had a neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center say, ‘You’re Hercules. Sure, you can go back to work.’ I said ‘I’m a human being. That’s a character I play.’ I think that people get caught up in it as much as anybody gets caught up in it when you play a character larger than life. It’s weird. It’s really strange. Doctors know it takes three days for a stroke to show up on an MRI, but with all the symptoms I had when I came in there, they knew it had to be a stroke. So it’s weird. They certainly saved my life. I’m not going to deny them that, but it was a little frustrating that they said, ‘Oh you’re going to be fine’ because I knew in my brain that I wasn’t fine. But I was in denial as well. I knew I had stroked. I knew what had happened. I knew about the slurred speech. I knew about the fourth stroke that came and went, and I didn’t want to admit to that. I mean, I was in shape that was ridiculous. For a guy who was 38 years old, I was in better shape than most 22-year-old athletes. But all of a sudden it happens to me and it was frightening. 

Do you think in hindsight that there were any warning signs?

I had them for months. First my pinky was getting cold. Then my ring finger and then my middle finger and then my whole left hand, they were getting number and colder and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. And obviously after everything happened it was explained to me that the aneurysm that was there, that no one knew existed, was slowly spitting out blood clots through that artery that was feeding into my hands and it was sealing off those fingers from blood flow. And those aches were there in my shoulder and all the way down my arm. I had aches and pains and it would be throbbing. My artery was trying to find a way to pump blood and it was getting clogged up, so it couldn’t get through there anymore.

Did you think that a stroke could happen to someone your age?

I knew it could, but it was probably something I didn’t think about. I’ve talked to four neurologists and a number of doctors over the years and the risks for strokes are obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking. I was everything that was opposite of what you look for in a stroke victim. I was the last person that anything like this would happen to. It was just one of those things. I joke that I should have bought a lottery ticket that day, because the same chance that I had in getting sick was the same chance as I had in winning the lottery.

Learn more about the risks for a stroke.

Since you took such good care of yourself, is there any speculation about why this happened to you?

Two things really stood out: one is that it could have been biological, something that I had since birth, the aneurysm, which was the seed that did everything to me. Or they said it could have been the years and years of lifting weights, the wearing down of that artery from the rotation of doing shoulder exercises, bench presses, or whatever. It’s been known to happen to some major league baseball players. It could have been stress. I honestly think that it was the stress in my life. I loved the show, but everything was on my shoulders. I was working 14-hour days and lifting weights two hours a day, but on the flipside of that I loved the series. I loved playing the character. I loved going in every day and laughing. I was really lucky and I know that.

You had your strokes just months after Kirk Douglas’s very public stroke.  Were you worried that you would end up with his level of paralysis?

I didn’t think of him to be honest. I just thought of stroke in general. You think of death, you think of sitting in a wheelchair and drooling out of one side of your mouth. I was scared, scared of what’s going to happen. I had some doctors telling me that the strokes were not caused by the aneurysm, that it was something else. So in my mind, I’m thinking, ‘So there’s something in my body ready to give me more strokes?’ I became worried about everything, a total hypochondriac. I was at the point where I was like ‘Oh my gosh, I got a hangnail. Is that going to kill me now?’ I think that was one of the main reasons I started suffering panic and anxiety attacks. Even dealing with depression and blaming the world, even though the world had nothing to do with it.  It was scary because I didn’t know where my career was going to end up. I still had so much to do in my life. I was going to get married and wanted to have kids and I wanted a big movie career and I wanted all of this stuff to happen, and all of a sudden those things were sort of taken away. 

What was the most disturbing complication for you, personally?

Anything to do with sounds or strobe lights, cars moving around me, anything that was an input of information that was too quick or too fast would just put me over the moon. But I couldn’t stay home in a cocoon. I had to put myself out there. I had to keep moving toward the kryptonite in order to get better.

What would you say was the single most effective component of your recovery?

The greatest was my will. That’s why the book is called True Strength. I had to find my own true strength. I mean, that’s why it’s a play on Hercules, the character that I played, which was the strongest man in the world. That wasn’t true strength. That was television strength with a bunch of stunt guys making me look like I was an animal. This was me reaching deep down because I’m a really strong-willed person and saying I’m not going to let this thing push me down. I’m not going to hold back. I’m going to get better than the doctors think I can.

Which rehab exercises worked best for you?

Anything to do with balance was key because I lost 10 percent of vision in both of my eyes, which hasn’t gotten better, but I’ve adapted to it. My balance center, itself, was also affected, so I had to learn to walk again and balance myself again and slowly work my way up to running again.

Golf was important, because it deals with nothing but balance because you’re standing over a ball that doesn’t move and you swing. I’m a good golfer, but I was a better golfer before the stroke. I’m getting better again, but it’s taken a long time. Meditation, acupuncture, and yoga were also bits and pieces of the puzzle that really made me feel better.

Find stroke treatments here.

How did you deal with the crippling anxiety and depression that came after the strokes? 

It was something I had to deal with a lot over the first three years. It was horrible; you feel like you’re hyperventilating and you feel like you're going to die. So [my wife] set up seeing a psychiatrist for me. I think I only saw him three or four times. He said that the panic comes from the fact that your shadow is now reemerging and showing itself, and we all have that shadow or whatever you want to call it — that bag that we carry with us as we grow up. The positive and the negative and everything we make dear goes in that bag that reared its ugly head in and showed itself to me. I was afraid to show myself to the world because all of a sudden everybody’s going to look at me and say, ‘Look at him now. He’s not much of a man anymore, is he?’ And it scared me. It freaked me out.  But meditation was huge as well as the acceptance of that shadow, the acceptance of the panic and anxiety. I had to get past my own ego and say, ‘I don’t care if people see me naked. I just don’t care.‘ From doing that and breathing exercises, I haven’t had a panic or anxiety attack for years now.

Learn more about anxiety disorders here.

As you recovered, you finished the last two seasons of Hercules and have since gone on to star in Andromeda for five years along with dozens of films. Do you still suffer any complications from the strokes?

I’ve been fortunate enough to stay busy which is good. But sometimes I get overly tired and my limbs get heavy. I reach a place where my battery dies and I need to rest. But I still push myself and work out everyday. There are residuals, but it hasn’t affected me workwise. I take big pride in my preparation and being a pro on the set. If anything’s changed, I know I’ve grown better as an actor. But if I have to rest, I have to rest.

After keeping your strokes a secret for 14 years, what spurred you to finally come out about them now in True Strength?

I believe this book came out of years of my wife bugging me to get this book done. She said you have an amazing story to tell people, to inspire people. Since writing this book and doing book readings I’m meeting people who’ve had car accidents and strokes and they come to me in tears and say this book speaks to them in so many ways. I’m unbelievably grateful to hear what everybody had to say.