Michael J. Fox Is Retiring from Acting Again

"There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a twelve-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me"

BY Calum SlingerlandPublished Nov 17, 2020

Today marks the release of Michael J. Fox's autobiography No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, and among his words of reflection and resilience, the Edmonton-born actor has shared that he will once more retire from acting.

"There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a twelve-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me," writes Fox in his fourth memoir. "At least for now…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 had semi-retired from acting in 2000 as his symptoms of Parkinson's disease worsened, and in No Time Like the Future, he shares more about how the condition has affected his life in recent years. In the book, he writes of memory loss and symptoms of dementia, recalling times he confused his twin daughters and speaking to people who aren't there.

The Canadian-American actor also writes of finding career inspiration through watching Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

"[Leonardo DiCaprio], playing a cowboy actor who's seen better days, keeps screwing up his lines," Fox writes. "Furious at himself over his chronic inability to remember and deliver the dialogue, [he] berates himself viciously over his abject failure. I feel his pain. I've obviously been there. But weighed against everything else in my life, I don't find it worthy of self-excoriation…My work as an actor does not define me."

Most recently, Fox made an appearance in a teaser for Lil Nas X's new single "Holiday."

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