PARK CITY, Utah – A strong latest documentary chronicles Michael J. Fox’s decades-long battle with Parkinson’s disease and portrays the Back to the Future star’s immense optimism within the face of hardship.
“Walking really scares people,” says the 61-year-old actor after walking the streets of Manhattan concerning the difficulty he has along with his stride. “But when you feel sorry for me, it’ll never reach me.”
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie premiered on the Sundance Film Festival on Friday to long standing ovations for each the film and its beloved character, who flew to Utah for the event.
In the post-film scene, Fox said, “It has been a tremendous life.”
Coming to Apple TV+ later this 12 months, “Still” presents a frantic rollercoaster of emotional ups and downs from a performer known for his boyishness and punchline talent. He was just 16 years old in Edmonton, Canada when he decided to drop out of highschool and move to Hollywood.
His skeptical dad gave in, funded the trip, and told him, “Should you’re going to be a lumberjack, you would possibly as well live within the goddamn woods.”
After a string of low-paying gigs and five years in a dingy Beverly Hills studio apartment – he says he had so little money he began eating packets of Smuckers jam – Fox became one in every of America’s most famous actors.
His breakthrough role was as Alex P. Keaton on the tv series Family Ties, which then helped him land the everlasting role of Marty McFly within the Back to the Future trilogy. For every week in 1985, his movies “Back to the Future” and “Teenage Werewolf” were the No. 1 and No. 2 movies on the domestic box office, respectively.
He was at the peak of his popularity, adorning gloss covers and lounging on The Tonight Show couch, but things soon fell apart.
About fame, Fox says: “I used to be the prince of Hollywood”, but life experience has taught him higher. “You’re thinking that it’s product of brick and stone. But it surely is not. It’s product of paper and feathers. It’s an illusion.
This has never been more evident than after a late night drinking in Florida in 1990. He woke up with a hangover and noticed that his little finger was twitching. When this didn’t improve, he finally visited a neurologist in 1991, who diagnosed him with Parkinson’s disease. Shocked, he shot back on the doctor, “You already know who you are talking to, don’t you? I shouldn’t have gotten it.
He kept his diagnosis a secret for seven years, popping dopamine pills to alleviate early symptoms and all the time holding props in his left hand on screen to cover the tremors. In retrospect, footage of his projects on the time revealed the stress the secrecy put him under. He coped along with his silence by utilizing alcohol.
“I drank to separate myself,” she tells director Davis Guggenheim. “I used to be definitely an alcoholic. But I have not had a drink in 30 years.”
Scenes within the movie Still show Fox working with a trainer to learn strategies to construct strength and stabilize his gait. In the weeks that the documentary was filmed, he suffered several injuries from falls, a typical symptom of Parkinson’s disease. Fox broke bones in his left cheek, arm, shoulder and dislocated his shoulder.
“A festival of self-abuse,” he jokes.
Fox doesn’t like people telling him to “watch out.”
“It has nothing to do with being careful,” he says. “It happened. You get Parkinson’s, you trip over things.
Sitting on the beach along with his 33-year-old son Sam, one in every of 4 children he has along with his wife and former Family Ties co-star Tracy Pollan, Fox asks: “Do you are feeling such as you’re 90? dad? Because I do not feel old.”
He says within the film that Parkinson’s is causing him “intense pain”, but he also sees it as a stark contrast to his years within the highlight being someone he didn’t recognize.
“Parkinson’s is a disaster – it’s true,” she says. “You possibly can’t walk and you’ll be able to’t go to the toilet – that is true.”
Fox had a profession resurgence within the 2010s and starred in TV shows like “The Good Fight” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where he didn’t shrink back from Parkinson’s and was in a position to be himself. He retired from acting in 2020, but continues to jot down books about his experiences, and his Michael J. Fox Foundation is a frontrunner in advocating for further research and funding for this as yet incurable disease.
“People tell me I make them feel higher and do things they would not normally do,” she says. “It’s an enormous responsibility.”