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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