Michael J. Fox let Larry David turn his Parkinson’s disease into the premise of a Curb Your Enthusiasm feud in 2011. Playing a fictional version of himself, the Back to the Future actor became the target of David’s suspicion that he was using his condition to win sympathy.
“No, they’ll crucify us. They’re gonna kill us if we do this.” — Michael J. Fox
David pitched the idea directly to Fox. Despite anticipating a backlash, Fox wanted to do it. Recalling their conversation, he said: “No, that’s not a problem. That recommends it to me.”
The show gave him room to improvise around an outline. “And I played myself so I can’t screw it up,” Fox said. David also kept surprising him: “He would do things that I didn’t expect.”
Looking back, Fox called the episode a “big breakthrough” in how people with Parkinson’s could represent themselves. He explained the thinking behind it: “we’re people in society, and we have to reach out for what we need, and we have to express ourselves.”
Fox was diagnosed in 1991 and disclosed his diagnosis in 1998. He established the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2000 and has helped raise over $3 billion for Parkinson’s research.