Michael J. Fox stepped back from acting in 2020, but the actor has now said he would consider returning to the big screen if the circumstances were right. Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at age 29 in 1991, told Entertainment Tonight that he was open to the idea.
“If someone offers me a part and I do it and I have a good time, great,” Fox said. “I would do acting if something came up that I could put my realities into it, my challenges, if I could figure it out.”
He called his recent documentary, STILL: A Michael J. Fox Story, a “big thrill,” noting that he “never would have set that as a goal. It just happened.”
Speaking before a charity event for his Michael J. Fox Foundation, the actor told ET that his goals are always in flux due to the reality of his life. “My goals are always shifting,” he said. “My biggest goal, I think, was to raise a family. We have four amazing kids, and that’s been the big thing. And then the other is with the work we’ve done with the foundation and wanting to achieve those goals.”
Fox, who received a standing ovation at the BAFTA Awards when he took the stage to present, discussed his decision to step away from acting in an interview with Empire last year. He explained that he struggled to remember his lines when appearing on two episodes of The Good Fight in 2020.
“I thought of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood,” he said. “There’s a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character can’t remember his lines anymore. He goes back to his dressing room and he’s screaming at himself in the mirror. Just freaking insane. I had this moment where I was looking in the mirror and thought, ‘I cannot remember it anymore.’” He added that he told himself, “Well, let’s move on,” and that the decision ultimately “was peaceful.”
STILL, which premiered at Sundance in 2023 and was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Documentary, followed Fox as he described his wild movie-star days, dealing with his Parkinson’s diagnosis, and how he’s doing now. Directed by Davis Guggenheim, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth in 2007, the doc also showcases what Fox’s life with the disease is like day to day.
Rolling Stone praised the documentary, writing, “The way the doc intersperses his reminiscences about his success, his private moments with wife Tracy Pollan and their kids, and the extremely honest and vulnerable new interviews he does with Guggenheim, makes all of that positivity in the face of adversity seem like anything but cheap platitudes. It’s a philosophy, born out of necessity or not. Parkinson’s has robbed him of some mobility but not his life.”
