Michael J. Fox told the Los Angeles Times ahead of his return to acting in Season 3 of “The Shrinking” that his decision to leave the profession six years ago was “not emotional, just OK.” The icon was making a guest appearance on the courtroom drama “The Good Fight” at the time. The year was 2020.
“I was doing…’The Good Fight.’ I confused it with Kiefer’s (Sutherland) show (‘Designated Survivor’) because both shows had similar issues,” Fox said. “They’re both very legal. I had to read a screed of legalese. I couldn’t understand it. When I did ‘The Good Fight,’ I had just seen ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,’ which is one of my favorite movies. Leo[DiCaprio]There was a great scene where he went back to his room and lay there in the mirror, just mad and drunk and crying over his inability to memorize lines. And I found myself in this same situation,” I said in front of the mirror, “I can’t do it anymore, I can’t do it anymore.” So let’s do the best we can for this puppy…and move on with my life. So that’s what I did. ”
Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991 and went public with his condition in 1998. At the time, he was the star of the ABC sitcom “Spin City,” but he quit the show during the show’s fourth season in 2000 because symptoms of Parkinson’s disease already made it difficult for him to be on set. This was the first time Fox had retired, but he was eventually persuaded to return to acting by Spin City co-creator Bill Lawrence.
When he received a call from Lawrence to guest star on Scrubs, Fox said, “I had retired from Spin City, so I really didn’t want to do anything,” and accepted the offer. “I did that show, I loved it, and I was getting all these great offers. I found this new niche, which was playing characters who had some sort of flaw and translating my Parkinson’s issues into cancer on ‘Boston Legal’ and a form of Parkinson’s disease on ‘The Good Wife.'”
The same thing happened again with Lawrence’s The Shrinking. The film includes a main story about the main character, played by Harrison Ford, who lives with Parkinson’s disease. Fox saw the show and thought its portrayal of Parkinson’s disease was so on point that they called Lawrence directly and asked him to appear on the show.
“The depth of the characters, the quality of the relationships, the language, it’s just a beautiful show,” Fox told the Times. “And I thought that’s the thing to do. I don’t have any plans. I don’t need to go back to acting or anything. That would be fun. And then there’s Harrison Ford, which is insane.”
Fox stressed that his return from retirement after a six-month hiatus “is not the beginning of a campaign to re-establish his career.” He 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. But on the set of “Shrinking,” that didn’t matter.
“It was my first time showing up on set, and I didn’t have to worry about whether I was too tired or whether I was coughing,” Foxx told People magazine last year. “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. ”
“Shrinking” Season 3 is now streaming on Apple TV. To read more about Fox’s latest interview, visit the Los Angeles Times website.
