Living with Parkinson’s disease has gotten harder on him with time, actor Michael J. Fox told People magazine, even as he keeps giving his hours and his name to the search for a cure. People published the interview with Fox, 65, on Wednesday, September 9, 2026; the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award went to him that same day, its citation crediting him with “dispelling the stigma of the disease and spearheading a revolution in the world of Parkinson’s research.” One outlet has since reported that the award is going to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research rather than to Fox personally. Organizers will present the prize at a gala on Thursday, September 17.
Tremors and balance problems are among the symptoms the disease has brought him. “Of course, things have gotten harder over the years,” Fox said. He added: “I’m privileged to commit my time and energy to bringing everything I’ve got to help cure this disease.”
A Diagnosis at 29
The first symptoms showed up in 1990, when Fox was 29, according to the Lasker Foundation, and the diagnosis of the incurable neurological disorder followed the next year. He kept it to himself for seven years, launching the sitcom “Spin City” while it stayed secret, then disclosed it in 1998. Young-onset Parkinson’s affects only 4 percent of people with the disease. Fox also got sober during those same private years, having turned to alcohol to numb the pain of the illness.
Once the diagnosis was public, he left “Spin City” in 2000, an exit year in which the show also brought him an Emmy. He then started the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and brought in Deborah W. Brooks — today the foundation’s co-founder and chief executive — as his partner in running it. Since then, more than $3 billion in research has come out of the organization’s funding.
Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate have also heard him testify off his medication, an appearance that left the disease’s physical effects unmasked for them to see.
More than 20 years ago he decided to attach his name and his face to Parkinson’s. His celebrity could draw attention and speed the foundation’s goals, he told People, and as a patient he feels the same impatience as everyone else living with the disease. USA Today heard Fox describe that shift in his relationship with fame in July: “The point where it got boring and tedious turned into a lever to operate a much bigger machine.”
The Push for Another $2.5 Billion
Now Fox is launching a campaign for a further $2.5 billion in Parkinson’s research money. The foundation is driving toward a world without the disease, he says, and nobody can pinpoint when that will arrive — only that it will. In the same People interview, he described the scale of the effort: “Science is hard. It’s astronomically expensive. It takes time and collaboration.”
Recent work on disease markers encourages him, Fox told People, and one report as of September 12 said he “expressed profound optimism regarding recent breakthroughs in biomarkers and targeted treatments.” Brooks has been his business partner for more than 25 years. She told The Hollywood Reporter in July: “It’s a hard disease — the care is hard to get, it’s not easy at all.” Two decades of foundation-funded research have remade the global scientific picture, she said: almost nothing had reached human testing of any kind when the organization began, while about 180 Parkinson’s drug programs were in human testing as of July.
Fox told People he sees the field gathering speed. “We’re seeing more research breakthroughs every year, new drugs to help patients live well, and better tools to help scientists move faster,” he said. In a separate remark to the magazine, he added: “It’s heartening progress. And we’re going to stay on it till the job is done.”
Back on Set in “Shrinking”
The advocacy has not pushed acting out of his life. Fox came back to television in the third season of the Apple TV series “Shrinking,” which stars Harrison Ford and Jason Segel and comes from creator Bill Lawrence, his former “Spin City” colleague. Parkinson’s belongs to his character too, a part he has said lets him carry his own condition into the work instead of concealing it, and one he found hugely enjoyable to shoot. Winter brought the season to air, and a 2026 Emmy nomination followed for Fox. A fourth season is something he has said he hopes to come back for.
In 2020 he stepped back from acting, citing trouble memorizing lines and saying the era of long shooting days had ended for him. Six years passed before he phoned Lawrence about getting back to work, and he has credited that return with lengthening his life and keeping it more interesting than he had expected. He says he is not retired. Doctors at his 1991 diagnosis put roughly another decade of camera work in front of him; that estimate is about 25 years behind him now, and he is still going.
Joining the Lasker Roster
Handed out every year for scientific research and public service, the Lasker Awards are sometimes described as America’s Nobels. Bill and Melinda Gates, Anthony Fauci and Christopher Reeve have all taken the public service prize. What made the award stand out to him, Fox said, is the proof its winners offer of what science can accomplish; to be counted among them, he said, is humbling. The honor belongs as much to the scientists and clinicians pursuing a cure, he said, and to the patients and families whose experience guides that work. In a statement, the Lasker Foundation credited Fox and his organization with helping to break down the disease’s stigma and with leading a transformation in Parkinson’s research.
The shelf was already crowded before this one. Fox has won five Emmys and four Golden Globes. He played Alex P. Keaton on NBC’s “Family Ties” from 1982 to 1989, starred as Marty McFly in the “Back to the Future” trilogy and appeared in “Teen Wolf” and “Bright Lights, Big City.” Guest turns on “Scrubs” and “The Good Wife” came after he left “Spin City.” The Bob Hope Humanitarian Award at the Emmys was also due to go to him, as of late July.
A Canadian who spoke in July from his home on Long Island, Fox shares four children with his wife, Tracy Pollan. His first symptoms came more than three decades ago; he is still working and still raising money, convinced that a cure is coming.