Michael J. Fox Says Battle With Parkinson’s Disease Keeps Getting Tougher: “I’m Not Going to Be 80”

Michael J. Fox continues to share candid details about his decades-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

The actor, who is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, spoke to Jane Pauley for a CBS Sunday Morning interview set to air Sunday. Preview clips from the sit-down show the 61-year-old Back to the Future star describing the challenges that he has faced as a result of the disease.

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“I’m not gonna lie, it’s getting harder,” Fox said of living with Parkinson’s. “It’s getting tougher. Every day gets tougher. But that’s the way it is. I mean, who do I see about that?”

The actor, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at age 29, discussed having undergone spinal surgery on a benign tumor and explained that the procedure impacted his walking. He said that this has led him to fall and suffer numerous injuries, including breaking both arms, a hand and facial bones.

Fox said that falling “is a big killer with Parkinson’s. Falling and aspirating food and getting pneumonia — all these subtle ways that get you. You don’t die from Parkinson’s; you die with Parkinson’s. So I’ve been thinking of the mortality of it. I’m not going to be 80. I’m not going to 80.”

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim directed Still, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and celebrates Fox’s life through interviews, photos and archival footage. In his review for The Hollywood Reporter, chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg praised the feature’s “tight focus and distinctive style” and wrote that it “delivers an essence of Fox’s energy and generation-spanning appeal.”

During a visit to the THR Studio at Sundance in January, Fox explained that he didn’t want to place any limits on the footage that Guggenheim felt compelled to include. Fox said at the time, “It’s a movie about my life, and if we’re going to be real about it, let the filmmakers have access to that.”

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is available May 12 on Apple TV+.

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