--- title: 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox | TIME description: The actor and Parkinson's activist has a new memoir, Always Looking Up. Michael J. Fox will now take your questions canonical: https://time.com/video/O1fYDZQe/ og:title: 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox og:description: The actor and Parkinson's activist has a new memoir, Always Looking Up. Michael J. Fox will now take your questions og:url: https://time.com/video/O1fYDZQe/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/O1fYDZQe/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox twitter:description: The actor and Parkinson's activist has a new memoir, Always Looking Up. Michael J. Fox will now take your questions twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/O1fYDZQe/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Michael J. Fox](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/O1fYDZQe.m3u8) (6:56)  _Published 2009-04-16. The actor and Parkinson's activist has a new memoir, Always Looking Up. Michael J. Fox will now take your questions_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:08 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Watch: Michael J. Fox Performs with Coldplay at Glastonbury Festival](/video/Hg17ehBt/) ### Watch: Michael J. Fox Performs with Coldplay at Glastonbury Festival [Michael J. Fox Accepts TIME100 Impact Award With Moving Speech on Parkinson’s Experience](/video/OmRIUHHm/) ### Michael J. Fox Accepts TIME100 Impact Award With Moving Speech on Parkinson’s Experience [10 Questions for J.J. Abrams](/video/NrAlzm24/) ### 10 Questions for J.J. Abrams --- ## Transcript >> Hi, I'm Gilbert Cruz for TIME. com, and I'm here with Michael J. Fox, author of the new memoir, 'Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist'. Thanks for being with us, Michael. >> Thank you. >> Our first question is from Angel Paternina, in Cartagena, Colombia, and Angel wants to know, how do you think your advocacy has affected the public view on stem cell research? >> Well, I don't know, as far as my advocacy, in and of itself, I think that I was happy and I am gratified that I could be part of a conversation in some ways, maybe initiate that conversation at times when I just didn't wanna have it. In that way, people who may not have considered the issue considered it and I think that, that only benefited those of us who supported it, and, I know, certainly on the Foundation front, in terms of seeking out a cure and funding research in furtherance of a cure for Parkinson's, we were the second largest funder after the Federal Government and I'm really happy about that, and really pleased. We've disbursed about a $ 140 million in research funds. >> How do you keep your optimism in the face of what some people would consider difficult circumstances? >> Why is that-- I mean I took at home two books to try to answer that question so I don't know how quickly I can-- summon up here, but I think mostly it's about-- it's about acceptance and there's an expression that I-- that I quote a lot, which is 'Happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance, and in inverse proportion to your expectation'. So if I can accept what my situation is, and really own that in, then it's fixed in Space, and then-- and then I can move all around it, and I can't-- I-- have a few choices, I mean, I have no choice about whether or not I have Parkinson's. I have nothing but choices about how I react to it. And in those choices there's a lot of freedom to do-- to do a lot of things and there's a lot of room for discovery, in areas that I-- that I wouldn't have otherwise found myself in. I see opportunities to be of service, I see opportunities to do things creatively that I might not have done, like write and, also it's changed my-- the dynamic of my family, and the way I value my time with my family, so it's really affecting my life and believe it or not in a positive way. >> And have you ever felt cheated by having Parkinson's Disease? >> No, absolutely not. I-- it's-- been a detour that I like I said, that I wouldn't have planned and wouldn't have designed. But it's really led me to amazing places and to meet amazing people and to-- and I mean, I enjoyed my work as an actor and I-- and I enjoyed making people laugh and in whatever delivering whatever good they could've had got out of it. But to really feel now that I can make a difference in people's lives and thru advocacy and thru supporting research and also putting a face on a situation that's difficult for a lot of people, that they struggle with in anonymity and few that there's a certain stigma attached, and if I can help erase those feelings or lessen those feelings, I mean that's just, that's a kind of privilege that few people won't get, and it's certainly bigger than being on TV every Thursday night for half an hour. >> Do you continue to act or do you think your free time is best spent finding a cure for Parkinson's? >> I actively every now and then I've done a-- I've done a few episodic guest spots on a few shows, I did 'Scrubs', which was produced and written by Bill Lawrence who was one of my partners in 'Spin City'. And then I did 'Boston Legal' and I just did 'Rescue Me' with Denis Leary, who is also a good friend of mine. So in all those situations there were situations when I, where I knew I could become comfortable enough If I said I need 10, 15, 20 minutes. Can you do another scene while I get it together and I knew that would be copacetic so and it was, and so it was a great experience and a lot of fun, and the other thing about acting every now and then is it keeps my health insurance current. >> What is your, what's your favorite movie back then? >> Each movie has its own it's, you know, it's just on a couple of different levels, that there's the movie itself and there's the experience of having done it. But I come to a predictable answer, meaning it would be 'Back to the Future'. The first 'Back to the Future', cause it was just such a whirlwind experience for me. And I-- and I was doing 'Family Ties', at the same time so I was doing both. I was working like 18- 20 hours a day, I was 23 years old, it was just a-- it was just a once in a lifetime experience. And the movie itself holds up. Even though, you know, what now, we're almost at that some kind of, one of the-- one of the epochal, you know, kind of like-- segments of time that Marty traveled in and how you describe it but, we're almost at where he went to the future. >> Uh huh. >> So it's kind of odd. >> You don't have your voice yet? >> No don't have my voice yet, yeah. >> How has your experience with Parkinson's changed your approach to your craft? >> Acting is all about making choices that either reflect or conceal an actor's attitude in a situation. So when you-- when your choices are limited, in other words, I may say, you know, any amount of 'Stanislavski' and kind of inner method stuff may tell me that now is the time for my character to pick up this glass and drink. But if I can't pick it up without spilling it all over my shirt, what do I do, you know, and so I have to make other choices, so it becomes much more of a logistical puzzle than it ever was for me. Which is not to say that there aren't some rewards, and that, it isn't fun. It's a lot more exhausting than the other when I just, you know, when I, you know, I was just bouncing around I could do anything I wanted to do. But I think that what I found from the 'Rescue Me' thing especially was that-- is that-- that really inner thing that made me be an actor in the first place is still there, it will still kinda push me to go to places that are fun and exciting and that's my adrenalin-- know that I'm doing something, I haven't been just living life, I'm attempting something. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"10 Questions for Michael J. Fox","description":"The actor and Parkinson's activist has a new memoir, Always Looking Up. Michael J. 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