When Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991, he was told he’d have another 10 years to act. Doctors said that the neurodegenerative disease’s impact would, before long, become too significant for him to perform in front of a camera. The Emmy and Golden Globe winner recounts this from his home in Long Island with a note of triumph in his voice, since he’s defied the odds and then some. He reveals he’ll be returning for season four of Shrinking, Bill Lawrence’s Apple TV comedy, a quarter century beyond his doctors’ deadline; he’s about to head to California to shoot more episodes.
The 65-year-old is currently up for an Emmy for his debut on Shrinking‘s third season, which aired in the winter. Fox had previously announced he’d quit acting, during the pandemic, due to an inability to rely on his speech from day to day. It had gotten too uncomfortable. But that moratorium lasted six years before he called up his longtime buddy Lawrence — they go back to their Spin City days in the late ’90s — to get back into the game. “It’s really prolonged my life and made my life interesting in a way that I didn’t think it would be to this point,” Fox says of acting. “I’m not retired from acting, but if I didn’t act again, it would be for a very good reason. I let Parkinson’s make decisions for me.”
