Michael J. Fox emerges from the darkness of Parkinson’s

[Music] New York City is no easy place for the week or the infirm it's busy it's Brash and it's crowded especially for someone like me living with Parkinson's it's an incurable movement disorder that leaves me constantly at risk of tripping over my own feet or even of a bone-breaking fall but it's a risk I'm willing to take because I'm here today to meet someone who knows more than most but the ravages of Parkinson's disease a Canadian cultural icon whose determination to meet inevitability head-on is that once both futile and deeply inspiring someone who can grasp the future by the throat even though as he freely admits his future is rapidly diminishing [Applause] but uh well it's an oldie where I come from all right guys uh listen to some blues riff and B watch me for the changes and try and keep up okay there was a time when the name Michael J fox conjured up images of the boundless future a boyish Whirlwind from Canada framing his comic Talent always on the move and Keen to carve out that future in the Land of Make-Believe are you telling me time machine kind of a DeLorean with the strange hit movies to his name an ear to finding television sitcom sorry I had to answer the door myself for Butler's off tonight and to tell them to partner in Family Ties co-star Tracy Paulin I mind if I wait around here for a while J fox has it all still in his 20s he was on top of the world [Music] but then something happened Michael J fox one of America's Best Loved actors has decided to he's been battling entertainment world when he announced Parkinson's disease and has had it for seven years reality intruded in the form of Parkinson's disease and after several years of hiding it from the world Fox could no longer keep his tremors a secret [Music] all this week we have been life if you see that you know just kind of hum Paradise City in your mind it was a pivotal moment for Michael J fox a weight lifted oh Jesus Christ what the hell Parkinson's he began embracing roles on screen portraying characters with Parkinson's and not long after Fox began to transition from actor to activist what did it mean to be still I wouldn't know I was never still it's an inspirational story now captured in the new feature documentary still a Michael J fox movie I woke up and I noticed my pinky Auto animated Parkinson's disease for the past 30 years Michael J fox has fought tirelessly against the advancing inevitability of Parkinson's so what does a man who has everything do when it suddenly all swept away when Faith deals him a losing hand I'm about to find out [Music] being nervous around you you know you and I have a couple of things in common we're we're both Canadian there's only a month that celebrates our birth so I think I'm a month older than you I know you're probably a ranger fan but that's okay because you can't all cheer for the halves can we that's right she's tragic the other thing we share in common of course is Parkinson's and uh you know you release this feature documentary and I'm curious why now what is it that made this the next step in your story this documentary there was no uh what the major argument There's No Agenda I just um Davis goodheim the filmmaker who is quite a record for an Academy Award for the algorithm and and um he uh he told me I've just talked about life and and I said well if you want to do this we'll do it and he said he said well here's the way I work you you get three uh objections to three major pot points you're gonna no that's not my pressure that's your pressure I'll show up in your Royal cameras the story of me take two everyone talks now about owning their narrative so the sad Sac story is Michael J fox gets a debilitating disease and it crushes him yeah it's very effecting and very revealing and and present you is very vulnerable too is that the intention well I not so much vulnerable and not good but not not very honest yeah just just straightforward you eat anything there's one question I really like and I was talking about the period when I quit drinking the first couple years of sobriety really and they fight in a closet it's dark and scary it's sharp but there's blood let you know where you are you're gonna go upside down write that up and and um and he said a unique thing he said was a nice and they discriminated the truth Cruise was nice at that point did you realize you were drinking to deal with the diagnosis or were you drinking to deal with how you were coping boy I was always I was drinking because it was Friday night it's Sunday night Monday and Tuesday was coming and Wednesday was around the corner um I I decided to party and then but then what happened was when I got diagnosed it turned nasty I remember about flying anymore it was about about exiting from the situation actually from relationships exiting from from uh responsibility and um and and so I and and Tracy's response was was a big dose of apathy it just it just like bored them in on Wii and then nothing is like nothing is is complementary as disgusting she was just done and and and that and that yeah it shocked me into action there's a tendency for people to deny they have Parkinson's to deny the effect it has on them um I mean my daughter I I've hid mine for three years until my daughter added me with an essay that ended up appearing on on your foundation's website so I got it that way you hid your diagnosis for seven years and I'm curious about the effect that it had on your growth and on your relationship with your wife Tracy well if it was terrible so I I I I get to see if it is over the computer that seven day at sober we had more children I I grew Fuller in my understanding of what what it was I was dealing with um and and it can be coming to grips with the one doctor said to me to win this yeah and and like I mean for example the first part of the documentary I like to win I like them I don't I don't like to waste my time with stuff I like to go after it and and so that was that was the one my Facebook but I was you know if I really learned from this it was learning how to lose well and then I was uncomfortable with that first but but then again I just started to get more working for that and then I decided that that the way to um to one of the things the doctor said to me too early on was was that uh all right 10 years after work and he said look at the things you're saying this has to work it's 29 years old and a lot and a lot of expensive real estate yeah I'm sure so that I didn't take care of and kids going to school and and so I I started to work and and well I worked a lot and um and one of the things that that I came to over time was that I didn't need to do that and that that I wanted to be with my family and I need to look at things that I didn't I couldn't I wouldn't let the big thing I was a little Parkinson's driving the bus and I couldn't get it on the bus number I wasn't like that parking just drive the bus so I had to learn how to deal with all that stuff after coming out to the world with your secret Michael J fox became the unusually youthful face with Parkinson's disease actor Michael J fox testified before Congress asking for an increase in research funding for Parkinson's Disease here to tell you that administering a successful research program is not rocket science it's mostly common sense and the will to get things done thank you oh Mike with the help of some high profile friends he began focusing his energies on raising awareness about the debilitating neurological condition I left Spin City for a new job finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease Fox established his own Foundation to raise money for research but over the years the realities of living with Parkinson's began to take their toll careful with this right hand yeah oh yeah good have a seat okay sure yeah right see the core's still there those old leaks yeah right how you feeling okay the fight now is between Fox and the condition that was slowly eroding his independence and his very life you know I remember an executive producer saying to me once Slow Down slow down this is a marathon not a Sprint and my response was yeah that's fine but I'm a sprinter and and that was good but eventually I had to I had to own up to the challenge that was Parkinson's and I couldn't Sprint anymore and I can't Sprint anymore so he was right it was a marathon especially funny I can't dance to say my life but but one of the best dancers I know well no but I think I always could dance in the sense of I love movement I love yes I love that I love but but formal Canadians do the pony to do the mashed potato I can I could do that but I could move across the room in a really kind of poetic way yeah and when I lost that it was hugely painful and it's like skating skating was really hard to get up skating and um my paintings on several levels I mean I don't fall down and I broke almost everybody replace a professor this I broke the Evil Knievel the Parkinson's yeah and and then and they said be careful am I not being careful I'm just I have this this um this illness that day this condition it doesn't recognize uh uh Authority my brains it doesn't care there's some amazingly vulnerable moments in the film though and the one I actually had to stop and in the sense to cover my composure when that long shot of you walking outside with your physiotherapist and you turn someone is walking by and says hi Michael box and you turn to say hi and you fall what happened all right okay Maybe okay nice to meet you sir nice to meet you you're not gonna have my feet in the Heap on the sidewalk your shoes come off and yet you still managed to crack a joke to put thy person at ease where does that come from to put you at ease this is where antlers uh um humor is is how you make it it's I always look at any sense of what what's funny and only do I have a very overdrawn sense of humor it's sick it's dark you don't expect I have a dark sense of humor and which I I really enjoy um but uh it's it's just I I do feel I feel like like I want like like that woman because she said Mr Fox I think let's break it down a little bit because she said Mr Fox I know she knows it's me yes I know she knows I have Parkinson's yeah I know she knows that she just knocked me down she doesn't know if I'm hurt so I kind of feel like with the constantly you love again yeah here's the joke came with you they're your kids it's not that hard I think that a lot of the reaction of this movie and and and and um if I can say it it's just boring me people responding to it and loving it and and I think a lot has to do with this Tracy environment to be living right now with this this hateful crap and and and and and and and just somebody's saying okay you okay here we go nothing I did in this movie nothing to do in my life is for a fact I'm too old I'm too tired I can't do it I can't I can't make options but if it's real and then then this would be the easiest thing to do and and um and I really I really uh I like people and I think I think we can we can figure out a lot of stuff out if we just if we just I'm not worried about some constructed uh apparatus of of of self-comfort I'm obviously living beat by beat and it's easy I can make that for me and those around me the better coming up I'm Michael J fox is helping to unlock the secrets of this debilitating disease it's a huge huge development and money must be justifiedly proud of and we'll talk to Fox about what the future holds and why his Canadian connections are so important to him a tremendous fun I feel it with the Canadians and 39th and nothing during that [Music] since becoming the public face of Parkinson's Michael J fox has led the charge in the race to better understand the disease and ultimately to find a cure in the last two decades the Michael J fox Foundation has raised more than 1.5 billion dollars for research and recently established an important breakthrough medical discovery that could be a game changer for tens of thousands of people who are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease each year a test that can detect a key biomarker for the disease a step that could Venture determine who is at risk of Parkinson's it's a crucial development but there is much work left to be done one of the things that really was exciting and it coincided with about 10 years and we had in this ppmi thing we were finding a biomarker and and which is near impossible I mean it's literally a new sacker a gene and a in a brain but but yeah whatever genes live again I plead ignorance it's a huge huge development and one you must be justifiably proud of well I say I'm I'm pregnant I'm pregnant with people that they don't care I'm I'm happy that I was a part of getting the material they needed and the people they needed but what I'm most proud of and I say is every interview I'm so sorry I didn't even knew about that I put a spin on it um but is that um because of a decision I made 20 some years ago yeah there's there's a lady who goes to the supermarket now and doesn't worry about like it gives you a little bit of space and so for that little bit Elbow Room that I've given here I'm I'm Humanity prayer good okay I just want to feel better yeah and uh it seems to me I can I Can See Clearly more clearly the things I need to do to feel better but it says Michael J fox stuff people expressed to me that I make them feel better I make them do things that I don't otherwise do and that's that's the most powerful thing if you ever feel that's a huge responsibility I don't want to it up all right it's okay not to be Michael J fox sometimes you've taken every stage that's been thrown at you and made as much as anyone could make of it and that's a credit to you that's a gift to credit to you and the support traces you've given you and your family she has this disease too in the sense because I do and and from the beginning before this happened I I took this young actress who swear it was happening she was doing great it's beautiful and I made her a single mother I took out of the game and and I was so bad about that and now here I was doing it again with Parkinson's kind of superimposing an agenda and and a trial on her that wasn't her endure you need to answer there's like so many texts that you to respond to that tourism wait it gets better is this four texts from aquina that you haven't responded I only tried to do it last night so just respond to that I haven't seen you in a few days can't wait to see you do you um b2hu okay the beach awaits it wasn't that fact wait wait on the beach Well it can't be dealing with the hand of the beach can't wait to handle the bed right now what does your future hold for you well I think it's usually and I remember that future is the first thing the last thing we run on yeah and um I guess when it comes in the future is now future there goes it's gone yeah it's just like I'm I think I think future to me is an opportunity future to me is is a space Reserve to a commercial you have accomplished yet but want to um and and that space means uh uh reservation so you don't have it anymore and then you don't worry about it you agree Samson Road or wherever you are you just like like you'll know when there's something to worry about it anymore or you won't know um which is probably better the subtitle of your book was an optimist considers mortality what does that mean what what do you consider about mortality what would you say that that this isn't this isn't an endless Buffet then that that at some point I am I I've had enough of the jacket and um and I'm nowhere near that I with the very fact I'm doing this movie and and and and it is not it not me it is as relevant as it is and as compelling as it is to people um and the fact that my my little story with it today it's the tremendous fun I feel it with uh Canadians and I mean I've done nothing to her now um but but that's I mean so many letters okay it's tremendous and and like it uh it was a gift it was one of many gifts but I brought that jumps out of me because obviously hockey and pancakes and maple syrup and skiing and and and goofy stuff like that time and I goofy better like Rush it's cool stuff Burton Cummings I mean it's like Canadian stuff that's our stuff and I'm glad I'm still in the club well listen I want to thank you so much for your battle your fight for all of us and I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us today it's been a real pleasure yeah it was really good I was looking at that the battle please [Music]

Channel: CBC News: The National

Views: 1,084,363

Keywords: The National, CBC, CBC News, Harry Forestell, Michael J. Fox, michael j fox interview, michael j fox, michael j fox documentary, still movie, STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie, michael j fox harry forestell, parkisons, michael j fox parkinson’s, michael j fox 2023, michael j fox video, michael j fox story, michael j fox family, parkinson’s disease, michael j fox career, michael j fox alcoholic, michael j fox burnaby, michael j fox canada, Parkinsons, Parkinson's

Id: tFts5Qdrqt0

Length: 23min 11sec (1391 seconds)

Published: Wed May 24 2023