Michael J Fox has said acting has “prolonged my life” following his Parkinson’s diagnosis, as he reflected on living with the condition for more than three decades.<\/p>\n
The 65-year-old actor, best known for playing Marty McFly in the Back To The Future trilogy, was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson\u2019s disease in 1991, a year after Back To The Future Part III was released.<\/p>\n
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox said acting had given him purpose, even though he has stepped back from the profession.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s really prolonged my life and made my life interesting in a way that I didn\u2019t think it would be to this point,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m not retired from acting, but if I didn\u2019t act again, it would be for a very good reason. I let Parkinson\u2019s make decisions for me.”<\/p>\n
Fox also spoke about overcoming his initial reluctance to publicly discuss his diagnosis, saying he realised it was important to “normalise” the condition.<\/p>\n
He recalled anonymously joining online chat rooms for people with Parkinson\u2019s after revealing his diagnosis and asking members what they thought of the celebrity who had gone public.<\/p>\n
The responses ranged from supportive to celebratory.<\/p>\n
“I thought, ‘Well, f*** you, I have Parkinson\u2019s and you\u2019re celebrating,\u2019” he said.<\/p>\n
Fox first noticed a tremor in his little finger before being diagnosed at the age of 29. Parkinson\u2019s disease, a progressive neurological condition, has since had a significant impact on his mobility and he has spoken previously about suffering broken bones after a number of falls.<\/p>\n
He has also been open about the effect the condition has had on his memory, including the challenges it created when learning dialogue for acting roles.<\/p>\n
In 2000, Fox founded the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson\u2019s Research, which has raised more than two billion US dollars for research into the disease.<\/p>\n
In 2023, he was the subject of the Apple TV+ documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, which explored his life and career, as well as the impact Parkinson\u2019s has had on him.<\/p>\n
Alongside the Back To The Future films, Fox is also known for roles in Teen Wolf, Doc Hollywood and the television comedy Spin City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael J Fox has said acting has “prolonged my life” following his Parkinson’s diagnosis, as he reflected on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-564421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}