Harrison Ford has heaped praise on his new co-star Michael J. Fox for being a “generous, supportive, wonderful person”.
Last May, it was revealed that the Back To The Future star would be returning to acting in a guest role in the third season of the Apple TV show Shrinking, which debuted on the streaming service this week (January 28).
The show, created by Ted Lasso’s Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein, sees Ford playing a behavioral therapist who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, and the new season sees Fox taking on the role of a fellow Parkinson’s patient.
Fox has been a high-profile campaigner for Parkinson’s research since his initial diagnosis in 1991 at the age of 29 and he founded the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 to help fund the hunt for a cure.
Shrinking marks his return to acting after retiring in 2020, and now Ford has spoken extremely highly of him in an interview with Vanity Fair, describing him as “generous, supportive, open, just a wonderful person”, adding: “[And a] pretty goddamn good actor too”.
“It’s a daunting disease and also a daunting job to represent it in an appropriate way. It was a very important experience for me to have,” Ford added. “Michael is an extraordinarily powerful person.”
Fox returned the compliment in the interview, praising Ford for his depiction of the disease.
“That’s one thing that’s amazing about Harrison,” he said. “I don’t have to convince him I have Parkinson’s, but he had to convince me he had Parkinson’s. What I wasn’t prepared for was how much of his own understanding of the disease he brought to it.
“I mean, I recognised Parkinson’s in his eyes. The things I was feeling, I recognised in the way he was expressing himself.”
The entire depiction of Parkinson’s in Shrinking was inspired by Fox to begin with, with Lawrence having stated: “I found the first mentor in my life and career, Michael J. Fox, to be so inspiring. The way he took it in stride and continues to work harder than anybody I know. And we want to kind of carry that spirit if we can into the show.”
Fox had previously worked with Lawrence on the sitcom Spin City from 1996 to 2000, a show the actor was forced to quit as his symptoms worsened. Fox also had a two-episode arc as a genius doctor with OCD in Lawrence’s Scrubs.
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