The Back to the Future star previously announced his retirement due to complications from Parkinson’s Disease.
Michael J. Fox says he is ready to return to acting, about four years after announcing that he didn’t know if he would ever do so again. Fox, who has been struggling with Parkinson’s Disease since 1991 — a diagnosis he made public in 1998. The star previously cited memory issues — leading to an inability to memorize lines — as a reason for his retirement. He recently appeared in Still, a documentary about his life and his struggles with the disease, for Apple TV+. Now, though, it seems he is at least open to the idea of returning to the screen if the circumstances are right.
When Fox announced his diagnosis in 1998, he was heading up Spin City, the long-running sitcom from Scrubs and Ted Lasso showrunner Bill Lawrence. In 2001, he stepped away from that show, effectively replaced by Charlie Sheen. He has worked consistently since, but usually only in short-term or recurring guest parts, rather than major leading roles.
“I would do acting if something came up that I could put my realities into it, my challenges, if I could figure it out,” Fox told Entertainment Tonight.
Fox has periodically done some voice work — notably for American Dad and the Stuart Little movies — which some fans had pointed to as an obvious way for him to keep acting in some capacity if he wants to. After all, regardless of your memory, you can work with a script in hand if you’re in the sound booth.
“My short-term memory is shot,” Fox admitted in a 2020 interview with People magazine. “I always had a real proficiency for lines and memorization. And I had some extreme situations where the last couple of jobs I did were actually really word-heavy parts. I struggled during both of them.”
Fox’s last major job was a recurring role on The Good Wife, and has appeared in a pair of episodes of the spinoff The Good Fight. In 2018 he also had a brief run on Designated Survivor.
In 2020, when Fox wrote his book No Time Like the Future, he said that writing had become his major creative output.
“I’m down to this,” Fox told People of the writing. “My guitar playing is no good. My sketching is no good anymore, my dancing never was good, and acting is getting tougher to do. So it’s down to writing. Luckily, I really enjoy it.”
