Michael J. Fox started developing symptoms of Parkinson's Disease in 1991.
Though it began with only a twitching little finger and a sore shoulder, Fox was told that it would only be a few years before he would be forced to retire from acting completely.
Well, that "few years" ended up being an incredible decades-long career until Fox retired from acting in 2020.
Still, the 60-year-old will take on a few roles here and there, though these days he's very selective on the type of work he will take on.
Fox explained to comedian Mike Birbiglia on the latter's podcast Working It Out that he no longer looks for roles with "a lot of lines" simply because he can't remember them.
Fox explained, "When I did the spinoff from [The] Good Wife, which is [The] Good Fight, I couldn't remember the lines. I just had this blank, I couldn't remember the lines.
Fox experienced similar problems while filming Kiefer Sutherland's show Designated Survivor. But while another person may have panicked in a similar situation, Fox says he kept his cool.
"It was this legal stuff and I just couldn't get it," he said. "But what [was] really refreshing was I didn't panic. I didn't freak out. I just went, 'Well, that's that. Moving on. A key element of this process is memorizing lines, and I can't do it."
Describing himself as a "huge" Quentin Tarantino fan, he recalls a scene from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, where Leonardo DiCaprio's Rick Dalton forgets a line in the middle of a scene for the fictional TV show he's shooting, and completely loses his mind.
Per the Hollywood Reporter, Fox recalled, "He went back in the dressing room, he was screaming at himself — he was like tearing into himself in the mirror and drinking. Just a mess, and I thought about that, and I thought, 'I don't want to feel that. Am I wrong to feel that? Am I right to feel that?"
"I don't take on something with a lot of lines, because I can't do it. And for whatever reason, it just is what it is," he said. "I can't remember five pages of dialogue. I can't do it. It can't be done. So I go to the beach."
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