Michael J. Fox

After a life-changing diagnosis, the actor didn't get mad, he got motivated. In the decades since, he has raised billions for Parkinson's research and personified grace under pressure. So why is he waiting for the other shoe to drop?

- ANDREW GOLDMAN

A couple of years ago, Davis Guggenheim experienced a confounding emotion familiar to anyone who spends time with Michael J. Fox. The director was in Fox’s Central Park West apartment, midway through his first day of interviewing the now 62-year-old actor and philanthropist for the 2023 biographical documentary Still.

Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, is not physically well, though he’s lucky to be alive, having survived 33 years with an incurable degenerative disease that kills most patients within 20 years of diagnosis. In order to speak clearly, Fox takes pills to combat paralysis of facial muscles. The more the disease advances, the more medicine it takes to animate the muscles, until the inevitable point when the side effects outweigh the benefits of the medication, or it stops working altogether. One of the worst side effects of Fox’s medication is dyskinesia—involuntary movements and tics. So, while the constant bobbing and careering may appear distressing for Fox, it is in fact the best version of himself available. He regularly acknowledges that he’s long into the journey he once referred to as the “gradual paring away of my physical self.” And yet, after listening to Fox explain his outlook on the world, Guggenheim had a realization that he had encountered a man who had achieved a spiritual state known to few. He felt the need to confess. “I want what you have,” Guggenheim told Fox.