Michael J. Fox announced he was retiring from acting in 2020, but that’s just a hiatus as he’s currently filming a supporting role in the new season of the Apple TV+ comedy Shrinking. The performance will be Foxx’s first on-screen acting gig since 2020’s guest appearance on The Good Fight. “I’m always retired,” the actor recently quipped to People magazine.
As for the details of his return to acting, Fox has not yet revealed any details regarding Season 3 of The Shrinking, other than to say that he considered joining the series after learning that Harrison Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhodes, had Parkinson’s disease. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991 and announced his condition publicly in 1998. Fox personally called “Shrinking” creator Bill Lawrence to inquire about appearing in the comedy.
“I said, ‘You’re doing a show about Parkinson’s disease and you didn’t call me?’ And he said, ‘Oh, do you want to do it?’ And I said, ‘I’d love to do it,'” Fox said. “So he said, ‘Let’s just give it some thought and see what we can do.'” So he started working on it and came up with this concept, which is really good. ”
“This was my first time showing up on set, and I didn’t have to worry about being too tired or coughing or anything like that,” Fox added. “I just do it. It’s been really good, because the moment I say, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this,’ I say, ‘Well, I’ll just deal with how I can’t do it on set.'” And you get over it. ”
Speaking more generally about living with Parkinson’s disease, Fox concluded, “You wake up in the morning, you get the message of what the day is going to be, and you try to adapt to it. Physically, you keep facing new challenges, but you work through them. I roll around a lot in my wheelchair, but it took me a while to get used to it. You take the good and you grab it.”
Also, ending his acting retirement with “The Shrinking” seems to have reignited Foxx’s acting bug a bit. He explained: “Looking at other people’s work makes me think that maybe I can find something that works for me, both as an actor and as a writer. And as a parent, husband, and friend, I have a lot of work left to do.”
Plot details for Season 3 of The Shrinking have not yet been revealed, but it seems likely that Foxx and Ford will appear on screen as characters living with Parkinson’s disease. Ford told Variety earlier this year that Fox’s involvement in the show was “essential.”
“Michael’s courage, fortitude, and above all grace are on full display. He is a very smart, very brave, noble, generous, passionate man who is an example to all of us, whether we are facing Parkinson’s disease or not,” Ford said. “I can’t help but recognize how wonderful it is to have this kind of grace…Parkinson’s disease is not funny, and I want to get it right. We need to get what we do right with respect to the challenges that Parkinson’s disease represents and not exploit it for entertainment.”
Foxx originally announced his retirement from acting in 2020 in his book No Time Like the Future, in which he told fans that his Parkinson’s disease made it difficult for him to be on set or memorize lines.
“The diminishing ability to download words and repeat them verbatim is just the latest ripple in the pond,” Fox wrote at the time. “There are many reasons for my memory decline, including age, cognitive issues due to illness, distraction from the constant sensations of Parkinson’s disease, and a lack of sensation through my spine, but I read it as a message, an indicator.”
“There’s time for everything, and it’s best to work 12 hours a day and memorize seven pages of lines,” he added. “At least for now… To be fair to myself and the producers and directors and editors and the poor scriptwriters who are on the ropes and the actors who are enjoying a bit of pace, I’m going into retirement for the second time. That might change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.”
Mr. Fox had been absent from the screen since “The Good Fight” before “The Shrinking,” but he appeared in the press in support of the Apple TV+ documentary “Still” in 2023. He said working on the film was a “huge thrill” and told Entertainment Tonight in 2024 that he would consider returning to acting “if I could put my reality into it, where I could solve my own problems.”
“If someone offers me a[new]part and I do it and I have a good time, that’s great,” he added at the time.
Apple TV+ has not yet announced when Fox’s “Shrinking” season will begin.
