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Michael J. Fox will return to on-screen acting for the first time since his retirement in 2020 with a guest role on Season Three of the Apple TV+ show, Shrinking.
As Variety reports, specific details about Fox’s character and story arc on the critically acclaimed comedy are unknown at the moment. That said, it’s possible Fox could be involved in a storyline tied to Harrison Ford’s character, Paul, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease early in the show. Fox has been battling Parkinson’s for over 30 years, and speech issues related to the disease were the reason he stepped away from acting in 2020.
Fox’s Shrinking role will find him reuniting with Bill Lawrence, the series co-creator, who also helmed Spin City, the hit sitcom Fox starred in during the late Nineties. (He left the show in 2000 because of his early Parkinson’s symptoms.) Fox later had a small guest role on another classic Lawrence sitcom, Scrubs, in 2004.
Along with Fox, Shrinking Season Three is set to feature guest appearances from Jeff Daniels, Sherry Cola, and Isabella Gomez. The show’s main cast boasts Ford, Jason Segel, Christa Miller, Jessica Williams, Luke Tennie, Michael Urie, Lukita Maxwell, and Ted McGinley.
As for Fox, his last professional on-screen acting role was a two-episode spot on The Good Fight in 2020. The following year, he lent his voice to an animated short, Back Home Again, and appeared in the docuseries, Expedition: Back to the Future, about the search for the DeLorean Time Machine used in the classic film (the series featured Fox’s co-star, Christopher Lloyd). In 2023, he appeared in Still: A Michael J. Fox Story, a documentary about his life, career, and Parkinson’s battle. And though not technically acting, Fox did appear on a giant stage in June 2024 — Glastonbury, where he played guitar with Coldplay during their headlining set.
Last year, Fox said he’d be open to returning to work in an interview with Entertainment Tonight. “If someone offers me a part and I do it and I have a good time, great,” Fox said. “I would do acting if something came up that I could put my realities into it, my challenges, if I could figure it out.”
