Michael J. Fox announced he was retiring from acting in 2020, but it turns out it was only a break. He has now filmed a supporting role for the new season of the Apple TV+ comedy “Shrinking.” This marks Fox’s first on-screen acting job since his 2020 guest appearance on “The Good Fight.” The actor recently joked to People magazine: “I’m always retiring.”
Fox hasn’t shared many details about his return in “Shrinking” Season 3, but he revealed that joining the show was his idea after learning that Harrison Ford’s character, Dr. Paul Rhoades, has Parkinson’s disease. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 and went public with it in 1998. He personally called “Shrinking” creator Bill Lawrence about joining 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. 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. 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. I wake up and get the message of what the day is gonna be like, and I try to adjust to it. 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. His return to acting in “Shrinking” seems to have reignited his passion. 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.
Talking more generally about living with Parkinson’s, Fox said
While details for “Shrinking” Season 3 are still secret, it seems likely that Fox and Ford will share scenes as characters both living with Parkinson’s. Ford told Variety earlier this year that having Fox join the show was “essential.”
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.
Ford said
Fox first announced his acting retirement in 2020 in his book “No Time Like the Future,” saying his Parkinson’s made it too hard to be on set and memorize lines.
The nascent diminishment in my ability to download words and repeat them verbatim is just the latest ripple in the pond. There are reasons for my lapses in memorization — be they age, cognitive issues with the disease, distraction from the constant sensations of Parkinson’s, or lack of sensation because of the spine — but I read it as a message, an indicator. 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,” he added. “At least for now…. In fairness to myself and to producers, directors, editors, and poor beleaguered script supervisors, not to mention actors who enjoy a little pace, I enter a second retirement. That could change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.
Fox wrote then
Even though Fox hadn’t acted on screen since “The Good Fight” before joining “Shrinking,” he did appear in the media in 2023 to promote his Apple TV+ documentary “Still.”
Also Read: Harrison Ford Says Having Michael J. Fox on Shrinking Set Is ‘Essential’ to His Performance
He said working on the film was a “big thrill” and told Entertainment Tonight in 2024 that “if something came up that I could put my realities into it — my challenges — if I could figure it out” then he’d think about returning to acting.
If someone offers me a [new] part, and I do it, and I have a good time, great.
he added at the time. Apple TV+ has not yet said when Fox’s season of “Shrinking” will start
Source: PEOPLE