The beloved actor and activist sat down with ET to discuss his acting career and Parkinson's activism.
In a time when reboots and remakes are all the rage, Michael J. Fox says he could definitely see new life for the Back to the Future franchise -- and he's even got a pitch!
"I actually had this thought that if they did the movie again, they should do it with a girl as Marty," Fox told ET's Brooke Anderson during a recent sit-down.
"There’s something about it that connects with people on every level," he added of the franchise. "I just feel like it will come around again."
The celebrated actor and Parkinson's activist reunited with his Back to the Future co-star, Christopher Lloyd, at New York Comic Con earlier this month, and the pair couldn't have been more thrilled to spend time together.
"Chris is the best guy," Fox marveled. "He’s gone from being this actor that I work with that I thought was funny and smart, to being a guy who was kind of like my brother, to being a father figure, to being now in a way that I never expected. People just like us together, because we remind them of people that they like and like to be with, and when I saw Chris at Comic Con, I just threw my arms around him because I was so happy to see him, and I'll continue to feel that way every time I see him."
The actor said the love from fans for the sci-fi trilogy -- which was released between 1985-1990 -- still impresses him to this day.
"What’s most amazing about Back to the Future is that -- and it has nothing to do with me -- but it has this life," he added. "People don’t just like it and remember it, they celebrate it and embrace it and get my face tattooed on their leg, and I mean, it’s crazy but in a good way."
"I love it and I only recently have been able to embrace it in a way," he continued. "Not that I rejected it before, or wasn’t proud of it, but I didn’t fully get how much people related to it, how much it meant to them."
The fame he's earned from the franchise, and his other celebrated roles on Family Ties, Spin City, and more, Fox explained, has given him the platform to do the work that has become his life's passion with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The organization recently crossed a major threshold, having raised over $1.5 billion for Parkinson's research through fundraisers and events like their annual A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Cure Parkinson's Gala, which is being held this year on Oct. 29 in New York City.
"It’s so humbling to have started this more than 20 years ago, in 2000, with the idea of advancing research in Parkinson’s, finding a cure hopefully, and what we discovered along the way is that you can't do anything without the patients," Fox shared of the foundation. "For so long the patients were the neglected part of the process, and it happens in all kinds of disease study and disease research, that they tend to hurry past the patient to try to find the answer and you can’t find the answer without the patient."
"I'm an actor, I'm like, a goofball and I stumbled into this situation," he continued. "I recognized it immediately as a real opportunity -- all these people coming to me relaying their stories and identifying with mine and empathy and sympathy all combined -- this is something. We don't get this opportunity very often, and so I do my best to seize it and grab some people that were smart and we launched into it."
When it comes to his acting career, Fox says "nothing's forever," but that he considers himself to be "retiring."
"Acting for me is letting things go and releasing stuff and to me, it’s always been freeing, but when acting started to involve binding things and retracting things and making them smaller and holding them in so it wouldn’t influence the way I played the character, it just got to be frustrating," he shared, relating to a scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in which Leonardo DiCaprio's character melts down in his trailer after botching his lines on set.
"I had a similar moment," Fox recalled. "I was onstage and I couldn’t remember my lines. I looked at myself in the mirror and laughed and I said, 'Well, that’s that. You can’t remember your lines. It’s all over.'"
"And I was happy about it, I was relieved about it," he continued. "Not because I wouldn’t be acting anymore, but because I recognized that... It’s kinda cliche, but every door that closes opens another, and with Parkinson’s it opened up a huge door to things that you’re not smart enough to choose. They choose you, and that’s really been my experience."
For now, Fox said, he's thrilled to be doing the work with his foundation, and spending time with his family. He and wife Tracy celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary this year, and they have four children: son Sam, 33, twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, 27, and daughter Esmé, 21.
"I think all those things happened because I didn’t plan them," he said of his life. "I didn’t say I want to accomplish that, I want to accomplish that. You show up for life and see what happens. So my wish is that I show up for life and recognize opportunities when they are presented, and on a personal level, just be with my kids... They’re in a really fun part of their lives and so it’s gonna be cool to see what happens."
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