Michael J. Fox: 5 ‘bits of wisdom’ from chat with Rolling Stone

Michael J. Fox is back in prime time, big time, on Thursday night with “The Michael J. Fox Show,” in which he stars as a local newscaster with Parkinson’s.

Ahead of that debut, he spent some time with Rolling Stone magazine and shared some “hard-earned bits of wisdom” picked up through his 30 or so years of fame and his 22 years living with Parkinson’s.

Thirteen years ago, Fox quit his last full-time television gig — “Spin City” — because doctors told him his acting career was over.

Looks as if they were wrong?

FALL TV 2013: Watch the trailers

Here’s some of what Fox, 52, had to say to the mag:

On living large in the 1980s, riding his “Back to the Future” and “Family Ties” fame:

“I went from girls not giving me the time of day to reading it off their bedside digital clocks. It was pretty cool.”

On realizing he was an alcoholic and deciding to get sober:

“It was like snapping to and saying ..., ‘[T]his isn’t the preview. This is the movie. And I’m already well into the first big plot twist,’ which is that I was going to lose all of this stuff. I had a great marriage and a great son, and I didn’t want to blow that.”

On being sober for 21 years:

“My sobriety is old enough to drink.”

On how Parkinson’s has changed his approach to acting:

“I used to be really nervous and sit in my dressing room and fret about a scene that was coming up ... now it’s just like, ‘OK, what’s happening?’ And if something happens, I react to it and if nothing happens, I don’t react. I don’t worry about that bit I was going to do or the look I was gonna give because when I get there I may not be able to give that look or do that thing or move that glass.”

On not worrying about the future:

“These little koans and sayings that I toss off are hard-earned bits of wisdom, and one of them is that if you imagine the worst-case scenario and it happens, you’ve lived with it twice.”

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