After five years away from acting, Michael J. Fox is officially back, and he’s bringing his trademark humor with him. The beloved Back to the Future star, who previously announced his retirement in 2020, is stepping into a new supporting role on Apple TV+’s hit comedy Shrinking. Speaking to People magazine, Fox joked, “I’m always retiring.”
This marks Fox’s first on-screen role since his 2020 guest appearance on The Good Fight, and it sounds like his comeback was sparked by pure inspiration. After learning that Harrison Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhoades, has Parkinson’s disease, Fox decided he wanted in on the show.
“I said, ‘You did a show about Parkinson’s, and you didn’t call me?’ And he said, ‘Oh, you want to do it?’ And I said, ‘I’d love to do it,’” Fox recalled. “So he said, ‘Let me think about it, see what I can do.’ So he went to work on it and came up with this concept, it’s really good.”
Fox explained that his experience filming Shrinking was refreshingly smooth: “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. I just do it. It was really good, because for the moments when I say, ‘I’m not going to be able to do this,’ then I say, ‘Well, I’ll just deal with how I can’t do it in the scene.’ And you get through it.”
The actor, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 and went public with it in 1998, continues to approach life with honesty and resilience.
“I wake up and get the message of what the day is gonna be like, and I try to adjust to it,” Fox said. “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. You take the good, and you seize it.”
It seems this return to acting has reignited something in him, and he shared: “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. And as a parent, husband and friend, I have a lot left to do.”
Harrison Ford also praised his co-star, telling Variety, “Michael’s courage, his fortitude and his grace, more than anything else, is on full display. He’s very smart, very brave, noble, generous, passionate guy, and an example to all of us, whether we’re facing Parkinson’s or not.
“You cannot help but recognize how amazing it is to have such grace… Parkinson’s is not funny. And I want to get it right. It’s necessary to be correct with what we do in respect of the challenge that Parkinson’s represents, and that we don’t use it for its entertainment value.”
Fox originally announced his retirement in 2020 through his memoir No Time Like the Future, explaining that the effects of Parkinson’s were making memorization and long shoot days increasingly difficult.
“The nascent diminishment in my ability to download words and repeat them verbatim is just the latest ripple in the pond,” he wrote. “There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a twelve-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me. At least for now… But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.”
Fortunately, that wasn’t the end. Fox later found new creative energy in the Apple TV+ documentary Still, which revisited his life and career. He told Entertainment Tonight in 2024, “If something came up that I could put my realities into it — my challenges — if I could figure it out,” he’d consider acting again. “If someone offers me a [new] part, and I do it, and I have a good time, great.”
Looks like that “something” turned out to be Shrinking, and fans couldn’t be happier. His return to the screen is one of the most anticipated moments in Shrinking’s upcoming third season.
It’s good to see Michael J. Fox still finding passion in telling stories in taking new roles.
