-Well, that's where you guys
met, right? On the set of "Family Ties"?
-Yeah. -I have a picture of you guys
from back in the day. Look at that. How cute. Future best couple. Come on. [ Cheers and applause ] How cute. -You're very smirky. -Well, you're still pretending
to be shorter than me. [ Laughter ] -You were helping him out.
-She's bending the knees. -I don't do that any more. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
-Exactly. -Yeah. Did you guys know
each other before this? -No.
-No. -Oh, really?
Had you heard of each other? -No.
[ Laughter ] -Not now, I mean, back then. -Tracy had heard of me,
but hadn't met me, hadn't seen any of my work. And I knew she was a theater
actress in New York, so I -- and I was, like, this hack
comedic guy from L.A. -I doubt that you were a hack.
Oh, please. -A lot of pressure,
but she was great. -Was this "Back to the Future"? -No, so what happened was, I had been asked to come in and
screen-test for "Family Ties." -Yeah. -But I had never watched
the show, and I actually had heard
his name -- -Not a fan. [ Laughter ] Yeah, that's hilarious. -And so, "Back to the Future"
had just come out. And I thought, "Well, I better
go watch it 'cause I have no idea, like,
who he is and what is he --" -Really?
-So I went by myself. I sat down at the theater
on 86th Street and I saw it. And I thought, "Oh, this guy, actually, like,
maybe has a future." [ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ] -That is the best. Maybe, yeah. You think? And then here you are,
is it 30 years later? -Yeah.
-30 years. -Holy moly. Congratulations.
[ Cheers and applause ] That is amazing.
That is amazing. Do you have any --
I know your family. I'm lucky enough
to have met your kids, and they're all awesome,
by the way. You did a great job
raising them. -Thank you.
-Any secrets for anyone for keeping a marriage strong
for 30 years? -Well, as the glib one
would say, I just feel funny saying 'cause my daughter's
in the audience, but keep the sex dirty
and the fights clean. -There you go.
[ Laughter ] -They're so happy. -The kids, they're so
embarrassed of Dad right now. Oh, my gosh.
[ Laughter ] They just walked out. They just walked out
of the audience. They just walked out. They're like, "Dad, I can't
believe you said that! So gross." -That is literally like --
-I know. Keep the sex dirty
and the fights clean. I love it. Today is World Parkinson's Day. Obviously you know that.
-Yeah. -What are you doing -- Can you tell everybody
what you're doing after this? -Well, I'm not doing --
maybe you misunderstood me, I'm not going over there, but they're lighting
the Empire State Building in orange tonight
for the foundation. -They are?
-It's so cool. -Yeah, so if you see
the Empire State Building and it's orange, it's because of
World Parkinson's Day. -Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ] Michael, can we talk about
the foundation, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, everything you're doing
for Parkinson's? How much money
have you raised for this? -It's unbelievable,
but since we began 20 years ago, we've raised $800 million. [ Cheers and applause ] -$800 million. Unbelievable. And what is the next things
or what -- -Well, what we're hoping to do,
obviously, our ultimate goal is to find
a cure and go out of business. [ Laughter ] Like, we went into business
to go out of business. -Yeah, exactly. -But what we're really zoning in
on now is a lot of different stuff that's over
my paygrade to understand. But we're zoning in on what are
the precursors to Parkinson's. Who's gonna get it
before they get it. And then we can give them --
treat them with something. Hopefully figure out
some way to forestall it and stop symptoms
from ever developing. Stop progression
from ever happening. And it may not be a cure,
but I would take it. -Yeah, exactly. -If I was someone coming up --
in terms of immediate treatment, we passed some things
through the FDA already, and we've made
a lot of progress. -That's amazing
what you're doing. -Exciting, exciting stuff.
-That's just unbelievable. That's so cool.
[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you for doing that.
That's cool. Let's talk about the book. Here you are. "Mostly Plants." This is a -- You wrote this with
your sister and your mom? -With my mother and my two
sisters -- Laurie and Dana. -How cool is that?
It's a great book, by the way. -And my brother Michael
wrote the foreword for it. -Yeah. That's what it's kind of
based off of, right, his quote? -It's his quote. His haiku. Eat foods.
-Is it a haiku? -I don't --
-It's a poem. -It is a haiku 'cause it's got
the right amount of words. -Oh, it has the right amount of
syllables? -Is it five, seven, five? Eat food, not too much,
mostly plants. That's what he said,
and it's a great quote. And what is flexitarian 'cause
I've never even heard of that. -So, flexitarian is
a mostly vegetarian diet. It's primarily vegetarian, but you can still eat some meats
and fishes if, you know, you're someone who loves meat, you don't have to
completely give it up. So these are recipes
that are mostly plant-based, but there are also recipes that have fish in them
and meat in them. And it's also about just
kind of changing the ratio of the protein/meat
on your plate. So you have primarily grains
and vegetables and fruits, and then just --
-Interesting. -A smaller amount
of the meat protein. -Have you always been
flexitarian? -I was vegetarian
for most of my life. And then with
my second pregnancy, I just couldn't get enough iron
or protein. It was really difficult for me. So then I started to slowly add
a little bit of meat back in. So now I'm most --
I'm mostly vegetarian. -Mostly plants.
-I'm a flexitarian. -Hence the title, yeah. -And Michael also didn't realize
it, but he is flexitarian. [ Laughter ] -When did you --
When did you realize that you were flexitarian? -I realized I was flexitarian
when I could flex more than I -- [ Laughter ]
-Yeah. Flexing, yeah. Have you test-drived
all these recipes? -Yeah, this is what my life
tastes like. -Yeah. That's fantastic.
-It's fantastic. -Yeah. -I get to taste
all those recipes before they hit the pages,
and they're great. The only thing I had to learn
not to do was -- and this is -- I'm a Canadian. I'm a schlub, real class guy, and so I put salt and pepper
on everything. So, the last thing
you want to do is, if your wife is a great cook
and makes a great meal -- -Wait, you put salt and pepper
before you taste it. -Yeah, yeah.
[ Laughter ] -Dude, I do that too, yeah. -Yeah, well, it comes,
and I put salt and pepper on it, and then I go, what is this? -Out of habit, yeah.
You just have to do that. -It'll go well with the pepper
that I'm putting on it. But you don't do that.
-No. -I assume I've seasoned it well. -Don't do that -- yeah, if you
have a great cook for a wife. Absolutely, yeah. I got to say, I love cookbooks,
but sometimes I read a cookbook and I go, "I'm never gonna make
that. I can't do that." There's things in here
that I can do, and I'm an idiot. And I love it.
-That sounds good. -It's a great book,
and the photos are great too. Congratulations on this book. It's available for preorder
right now, you guys. "Mostly Plants." Tracy Pollan, Michael J. Fox,
everybody.
