In No Time Like the Future (via People), Michael J. Fox shares he is planning a second, and perhaps final, retirement from acting due to health issues. Beyond the physical toll Parkinson’s has taken on his body, he also revealed to People that his “short-term memory is shot.” Because of this, he has trouble memorizing lines.
That same month, he showed up in a Lil Nas X video warning Nas not to visit 2020 while traveling through time. (A primo intersection of generations of pop culture!) He also released his fourth memoir, the aforementioned No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, in November 2020. In it, he writes, “In fairness to myself and to producers, directors, editors, and poor beleaguered script supervisors, not to mention actors who enjoy a little pace, I enter a second retirement. That could change, because everything changes. But if this is the end of my acting career, so be it.”
Fox might be down, but we wouldn’t count him out just yet. As The Hollywood Reporter noted, when Family Ties producer Brandon Tartikoff said Fox was too short and didn’t have the kind of face that would go on a lunch-box, that remark came back to bite him. After the success of Back to the Future, Fox sent Tartikoff a note that read, “Brandon, They wanted me to put a crow in here, but… Love and Kisses, Michael J.” The note was accompanied by a lunch-box with Fox’s likeness on it.