Michael J. Fox is returning in front of the camera for a fourth season of Apple TV Shrinks25 years after doctors first warned him that his Parkinson’s diagnosis would force him off the screen forever.
The actor, now 65, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 while riding high on the success of Family tiesand was told at the time that he had about a decade left before the disease would make it too difficult to perform.
He kept the diagnosis private for seven years and continued throughout time Spin City before he went public and, along with his wife Tracy Pollan, became one of the most recognizable faces in the Parkinson’s community.
He is now up for an Emmy for his Season 3 debut Shrinksand is preparing to head to California to begin filming more episodes.
His relationship with acting has not been a straight line.
He walked away from performing during the pandemic, finding it too difficult to rely on his speech day to day, and remained retired for six years before calling his old friend and Spin City collaborator Bill Lawrence to get back into the business.
Reflecting on that decision, Fox said, “It’s really extended my life and made my life interesting in a way that I didn’t think it would be to this point. 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.”
In addition to acting, Fox has spent the past 25 years running the Michael J. Fox Foundation with co-founder and CEO Deborah Brooks, a nonprofit that has funded more than $3 billion in Parkinson’s research and aims to hit $700 million in new commitments this year, a sum Brooks says nearly triples what the U.S. government set aside for Parkinson’s research by 2025.
When Brooks joined the organization, she came from a background in investment banking rather than medicine and has described learning about the disease’s lesser-known symptoms, such as constipation and loss of smell, directly from patients because the medical establishment had not yet caught up.
On screen, Fox has continued to find roles that let him draw on his condition rather than hide it, from his Emmy-nominated stint as calculating lawyer Louis Canning on. The good wife to a fictionalized version of himself on Fight your enthusiasm.
Shrinks marked a new milestone for him: it is the first time he has played a character who interacts with another character who also has Parkinson’s in scenes opposite Harrison Ford.
Fox has spoken warmly of how open and loving Ford was in developing this dynamic, calling him a “sweetheart” despite his reputation for being more reserved.
