An actor who rose to fame as a teenager has detailed how being on his ‘deathbed’ made him pursue a career in Hollywood.
After being scouted as a model, Chad Michael Murray had his break-out screen role when cast as Tristin DuGray on Gilmore Girls in 2000.
He then went on to star in One Tree Hill and appear in A Cinderella Story, Freaky Friday and House of Wax.
However, he’s now detailed a near-death experience that sparked his desire to pursue acting.
‘I was 15 and my intestines was twisted, and I was hospitalised for two and a half months,’ the 43-year-old shared on the Great Company podcast.
‘It was a lot. We had surgery, I had internal bleeding, I lost 50 percent of my blood. I was on my deathbed.’
The actor explained that he was in and out of consciousness while receiving treatment, but at one point he woke to find his father and a priest standing at the foot of his bed ‘talking about last rites’.
However, he recovered after receiving a blood transfusion.
‘It saved my life,’ he said. ‘Regardless, you’re in there for two months and my organs shut down because you have blood all coagulated around them, and they had to wait till everything [healed more]…I had to have a second surgery to clean everything up.’
He went on to share that leaving hospital was the ‘scariest thing ever’ as he was a ‘skeleton’ when he got out.’ I remember looking in the mirror the first time going, “Who is that?” I cried. I couldn’t believe that I was looking back at that guy.’
Murray also said the health scare not only brought him closer to his faith and his family – especially his father who was a single parent raising Murray and his five siblings – but was the catalyst to chase acting after speaking to a nurse.
‘She says to me, “Oh gosh, you should model”,’ he recalled.
‘I was like, “I don’t want to model. I want to be an actor. Like, I love film and television. I want to give this gift to other people”. And she’s like, “Well, you can segue from modelling into acting. Look, when you get out, I’m hooking you up with this modelling company I know”. And she meant it.’
After connecting Murray with the agency, he booked several modelling jobs and eventually met an agent who encouraged him to audition for acting jobs in Los Angeles.
In recent years Murray has starred in the drama series Sullivan’s Crossing and recently reprised in the Freaky Friday sequel – Freakier Friday.
He’s been married to his Chosen co-star Sarah Roemer since 2014, with the pair sharing three children.
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