Jason Beghe Died and Came Back to Life After Being in a Coma
The Chicago P.D. star was in a car accident that briefly ended his life: "It changed me."
Jason Beghe was in a car accident in 1999 that completely changed his life. Not only is the event responsible for making Beghe's voice so raspy (more on that later), he literally died at one point in the aftermath. Yes.
Jason Beghe briefly died after being in a coma: "It changed me"
Beghe opened up about his death experience in a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"I actually did die," the Chicago P.D. star said about what happened after his '99 car accident. "I was in a coma for three and a half weeks. And in the coma, I died, which was a very interesting experience. That’s a big deal, and it changed me, I’m sure."
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The car accident itself was quite traumatic. Beghe told The Daily Beast he "broke [his] neck, [his] back in a couple of places, all of [his] ribs, both of [his] lungs." It also affected his voice, which was already low to begin with. "When I would come out of the coma, since I was intubated from being on life support, I would pull the tube out and it made [my voice] even more f****d up," he said.
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Beghe's voice has become a signature quality of his Chicago P.D. character, Voight. “[The voice] is good for Voight—not so good when I have to play the sweet dad. But it’s good with my kids," Beghe told The Daily Beast. (He has two children.) "They’re good kids, but when I say, 'Hey, it’s time to clean up,' they do it."
On how the accident changed him, Beghe told The Hollywood Reporter, "It’s not good or bad, it just is. You know it’s just the truth, and I try not to think about what’s good and bad. Even like when people say 'I feel bad,' I understand there are emotions that are very uncomfortable but, are they bad? They are my emotions, I have them, I don’t create them just to suffer. They’re not bad, that’s me trying to say, 'Hey, something is wrong, something’s off!' So, in the same way, yeah, that that changed me. How? I don’t know. Just like everything else, I’m just trying to be. I’m just trying to be."
Chicago P.D. Season 12 premieres September 25 on NBC and occupies its normal time slot: Wednesdays at 10/9c. Episodes stream next day on Peacock.
