NEED TO KNOW
In a cover story with PEOPLE, Michael J. Fox opens up about his new book, Future Boy, his return to TV on Shrinking and his life now 34 years after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s diseaseFuture Boy is a behind-the-scenes account of when he filmed Family Ties and Back to the Future simultaneously in 1985: “It took me a long time to believe that I pulled it off.”Fox also shares his philosophy for staying positive amid new challenges: “You take the good, and you seize it.”
Michael J. Fox has a vivid memory from 40 years ago.
It’s a winter evening in 1985, and he’s backstage at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, waiting for his cue to walk out in front of a live audience assembled at Stage 24 for a taping of his NBC comedy Family Ties. Suddenly he panics. The camcorder he needs for his scene isn’t on the prop table.
After a few seconds it dawns on him: It’s not his Family Ties character Alex P. Keaton who uses a camcorder — that would be Marty McFly, his alter ego from Back to the Future, the movie he’s been filming each night after the sitcom. He tapes the scene, and four hours later he’s shuttling to job No. 2.
“I’m feeling the strain,” he recalls in his new book Future Boy (out Oct. 14), “but that’s nobody’s business but mine.”
The cover of ‘Future Boy’ by Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry.
Flatiron Books
If there’s anyone who exhibits grace under pressure, it’s Fox. Four decades after pulling off that feat, the actor and Parkinson’s disease research advocate still sets high standards for himself, like cowriting Future Boy — which recounts that intense time making two major projects simultaneously — in just nine months to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future.
And when it comes to tackling seemingly impossible challenges, Fox, 64, likes to paraphrase a famous line from that very movie. “If you put your mind to it,” he says, sitting in his New York City office while sipping from a can of Coke Zero, “you can do anything.”
Over the past several months he’s been doing quite a lot. Aside from writing Future Boy with longtime collaborator Nelle Fortenberry, Fox filmed a guest arc in the upcoming third season of the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, five years after retiring from acting in 2020 amid health struggles related to his Parkinson’s.
“I’m always retiring,” quips Fox, who previously said he’d stop acting after leaving Spin City in 2000.
He’s also finishing the audio version of his new book and continuing his work with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which he founded in 2000 after being diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease in 1991.
With all he has going on, the past year has been an exciting one. As Fox says with his trademark enthusiasm: “It’s just been really positive, really energizing.”
Michael J. Fox was photographed for PEOPLE in N.Y.C. on Sept. 5.
That’s not to say his life is without its hurdles. Fox, who showed viewers in the Emmy-award-winning 2023 documentary Still how he stays optimistic even as Parkinson’s takes its toll on his speech and motor skills, listens to his body each morning before deciding what to do.
“I wake up and get the message of what the day is gonna be like, and I try to adjust to it,” says Fox, who has four adult children, Sam, 36, twins Aquinnah and Schuyler, 30, and Esmé, 23, with his wife of 37 years, Tracy Pollan, 65.
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“I keep getting new challenges physically, and I get through it. I roll around in a wheelchair a lot, and it took some getting used to,” he continues. Fox always looks on the bright side: “You take the good, and you seize it.”
He still enthusiastically attends movie conventions, which helped spark the idea to write Future Boy.
“People really love the movie,” he says of the sci-fi comedy about a teen who travels from 1985 to 1955 when he hops in his wacky scientist friend’s DeLorean turned time machine. “I wanted to sincerely fulfill their wish to know more about the experience.”
He and Fortenberry interviewed former costars including Lea Thompson (who played Marty’s mom, Lorraine) and director and co-writer Robert Zemeckis to tell behind-the-scenes secrets.
One major drama: Unbeknownst to Fox at the time, he had been the first choice to play Marty, but Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg shut down the idea, citing Fox’s prior commitment to the show.
Michael J. Fox with Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter on ‘Family Ties.’.
Paramount Television/Courtesy Everett Collection
The filmmakers hired Mask actor Eric Stoltz for the lead role instead, but after a few weeks of filming, they realized he wasn’t the right fit. Stoltz was fired — and Goldberg agreed to let Fox make the movie as long as it didn’t interfere with filming Family Ties.
To make it all happen, Fox would work a full day on the sitcom set, then shuttle to shoot Back to the Future until the wee hours. “Anytime that he wasn’t moving, he’d fall asleep,” says Fortenberry.
Fox is still in awe that it worked: “It took me a long time to believe that I pulled it off.”
Michael J. Fox in ‘Back to the Future.’.
Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection
Fox did a lighter version of double duty this summer. As he was wrapping up the book, he filmed his arc on Shrinking, the Emmy-nominated series co-created by Bill Lawrence, who worked with Fox on Spin City.
Fox won’t spill much about his Shrinking character but notes that he plays someone with Parkinson’s. “It was the first time ever I get to show up on-set, and I didn’t have to worry about am I too tired or coughing or anything,” he says. “I just do it.”
Fox is still hungry for more of everything. “I see other people’s work, and it makes me think that I might be able to find something that’s for me as an actor and as a writer,” he says. “And as a parent, husband and friend, I have a lot left to do.”
Future Boy comes out on Oct. 14 and is available now for preorder, wherever books are sold.