Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Michael J. Fox on ‘Back to the Future’ 40 Years Later and the Power of Perseverance

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

Michael J. Fox is an award-winning actor, author, and philanthropist whose talent, humor, and heart have inspired generations. Four decades after Back to the Future made him a global star, Michael J. Fox sits down with Willie Geist to reflect on the film that defined a generation and the resilience that’s defined his life since. He opens up about the whirlwind of becoming Marty McFly at 23, the joy of rediscovering the movie as a fan, and the impact of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has raised more than $2.5 billion for Parkinson’s research. Plus, through decades of challenges and triumphs, Fox shares why he still believes “everything is possible.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Got a really special one for you this week with the great Michael J. Fox, special because I know how all of you feel about Michael J. Fox and special because of the way I personally feel about Michael. My father has had Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years, 32, 33 years, something like that. He was diagnosed in his late 40s. and diagnosed a couple of years only after Michael himself was diagnosed with Parkinson's. Michael's diagnosis came in 1991. He was 29 years old. This came at the height of his popularity.

After all the Back to the Future movies, Teen Wolf, Family Ties. He actually was filming the movie Doc Hollywood when he felt a little tremor in his pinky went to get it looked at and eventually doctors determined that he had Parkinson's disease. Didn't reveal it publicly for seven more years after that. And then in the year 2000, he established the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which has been a just bastion of hope and inspiration and research and fundraising and all the things that you would hope would come in this fight to find a cure for Parkinson's disease. He has been incredible to so many families, about 10 million around the world with someone living with Parkinson's. Michael and I got together at his favorite little restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, pulled up a table to talk about his new book called Future Boy. It commemorates the 40th anniversary, if you can believe, of Back to the Future, which came out in 1985, and tells the story I didn't really know, which is he was starring in family ties,

the hit NBC sitcom where he played Alex P. Keaton at the time. He gets the offer from Stephen Spielberg and director Robert Zemeckis, who were creating Back to the Future to work on that movie, Back to the Future. Family Ties says, you can do it, but we're still shooting Family Ties, our hit show. So basically, all day long, he would shoot Family Ties, then get in a car, and all night long shoot back to the future. It also came. There was an actor already in the role in Back to the Future of Marty McFly for a few weeks. Eric Stoltz, a great actor, and it just wasn't working. So they pulled him off the project and then approached Michael J. Fox. I'll let him explain all of it to you, but the book tells us behind the scenes just

back and forth, gives great stories about the making of Back to the Future. Also a neat coda kind of, I think, at the end of the book where he talks to Eric Stoltz, reaches out to him, who talks through 40 years of what could have been if he'd been the star of Back to the Future. So there's a ton in there, a ton to talk to. I always love sitting down with Michael. He's a dear friend of mine. I should say I'm on the board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I ran the New York City Marathon to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I unapologetically love this man and always enjoy getting a chance to sit down with them. So sit back, relax, and spend a little time with Michael J. Fox right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. It's great to see you, my friend.

Nice to see you as always. Thanks for doing this. This is your spot, right? You got your own table with your picture over there. New York, here's the thing you have to have your spot. Yeah. And this is a great spot. You're running through a lot of people that you know. And it's very social and great place with people. It's great energy. Great energy. Good food.

Not to mention. Yes, for sure. I have some crazy news to tell you, which is that back to the future is 40 years old. I don't know if you can believe that. I can hardly believe it. I was a kid when it came out, obsessed like everyone else. I hate that you were a kid when I came out. I was a kid when I came out too.

A little older kid, but. Yeah, it's amazing. It's, it motivated me to want to do this book because I've written a lot of books about Parkinson's, about my family, about the stuff. But this was just to write about this specific moment at the time that was just so fun, 23 years old, rolled by a tail, working my butt off with these great people. And people are interested in it. And it's a way to tip my hat to all those folks. I've supported this movie for 40 years. Yeah, you were saying still, and I don't doubt it at all, people come up to you all the time and want to talk about Back to the Future,

tell you their favorite scene, talk about Marty McFly or that they dressed as Marty for Halloween this year. Can you believe the resonance this movie has had over 40 years? It's amazing. I try to figure it out. First of all, people come on and say, you want to talk about time travel. And I say, you waste your time, I have no idea. I have no clue.

I don't know. I like the incident thing, but time is a conspiracy. to keep everything happening at once. And it's kind of like that. I can't figure it out. I can't know where the time went. And the other thing that I was thinking about is that is prep to talk to people about this book

is about bullies. Like, Kahn is a bully, and Parsons is a bully, and the movie is about bullies. And it's a great message to just to overcome the doubters and the people that say, you can't do things. What people love about the movie is. It's just about,

this kid and this crazy scientist who just have their own agenda. I just want to get it done. They're sincere and energetic and a lot of love and such a positive movie. It is. It is. I love reading the book saying not too long ago you were in your apartment or somewhere and you passed the television and it was on. And Tracy says, where have you been for the last two hours?

You said, I was watching Back to the Future. And you know what? It's pretty damn good. I was most of it. I said, I'm pretty damn good. I was saying, there's Christmas time. We were trimming the tree. I said, I'm going to go and get somebody to eat or something.

And I left. The room, the girl that's been there. Sam was there? So I went back through the hallway, and I said, past the TV, the opening cords for the theme started. And they're like, wow, that's cool. I'm so I can drifted over the sofa. It cut to 50 minutes later, or 45 minutes later.

They said, what are you doing? And I said, it's about the future. And I'm really good. It was just because I never connected with it on that level. I just, like, as an audience member, just watch it. I watched it a few times since in the preparation for this book to then nail that moments and to get the chronology in my head and see familiar faces.

And it was really, and I was nice checking in to just a personal part of the gift that it's been to me. So I hope people respond in the same way. What is it like for you, Michael, to watch 23-year-old you on that screen, sitting where you are today, and everything that you've achieved in your life since then, everything that you've endured since then? What is it like to have that experience?

Well, it reminds a story that I've told before about Muhammad Ali. I was writing in the previous book, and I was writing about the people that say to me, you're melancholy when you look at yourself in better shape and you're healthier and all that stuff. And I mean, think about it. So I thought, I want to call Juan E. Ali and ask what Muhammad thought, what Ali felt when he saw himself as a younger man. He said, did he look at it and see this point of him spouting poetry and dancing and just mystifying him and being a magical presence of him?

Just that whole big thing. I said, did it make him sad? right, it's exactly. Do you think it's lost? And she said, he loves that. He loves that. He loves to see himself a younger man. Because that's him.

He owns that. And I took that. And I said, that's right. I own that. It's not a younger version of me. It's me. And it's me that help me get to this place. It's really amazing.

So it's, um, I'll be magical. And people would respond to that question of how do you, how do you both? and as I watched the film, I realized it's just self-prevelling. It was just energy just built on itself, and I just had to go. We had to get it done, and it was so, the odds were so against us.

That it's a little miracle. It is, and I imagine when you're watching the movie, you're also starting to think about what that experience was like, which I learned in the book and a bunch of other people are about to learn when they get this book, is you were living this insane,

life. Family ties had come into its own. It's a big hit. Three seasons of it. And then the creator of that show, Gary, calls you into his office and says, what to you? He said, he said, and I didn't know what he was calling me into his office.

I just had teen wolf, and I thought, he saw Teen Wolf and was firing me. And so I go to... But I will not stand for the attacks on Teen Wolf. I like Teen Wolf. I love Teen Wolf. But I went, I went in the office, and he was sitting me on his desk,

and he had this envelope, and he said, he said, I don't know how to tell you this, but a few months ago, Gary, Steven Spielberg and Bob Zemacher scared to me, said they had this movie they wanted you to do, and I couldn't let you go because I had to do the show. And I was such, oh, this wave, I couldn't believe what you was hearing.

And then he handed me the envelope, he said, so take the script home, read it, and tell me what you're thinking. If you want to do it, we'll make it work. I picked up the envelope of the best thing I've never read. It's great. And it was in. From that, the one started in, I was just, I went in the book,

I had a series of, everything with wardrobe meetings to meetings with Bob. But it all happened very fast. And the great thing was, I'm getting a wardrobe of, picking out of the shoes. Little decisions like, I thought, I was wearing Nike, Cortez, Nike Bruins. And they said, what are we going to do for shoes? I said, these work. And so they called him Nike and had them order all his shoes.

And that was a huge thing. I mean, the whole history of shoe, the Nike story was altered, changed a little bit because of that split decision. And all kinds of decisions like that were made very quickly. And then they're saying, I'm in a parking lot in Ponte Hills. and it's it lit for days. This parking lot is all wet down

and the lights bouncing off it and I looked at those lights and I said this class more to light the scene than it

to do an episode of Family Times and so I do a little thing when I skateboard up and kick the skateboard and we catch it

and next time we shoot next scene we shoot with God and they're met Chris so I literally had never met him before we went

to do that scene. And he pops out and goes, I'm like, making a hole. Amazing. That's the way to keep up with this. But it was great. It was great. It's just one magical moment out of another. It's amazing. I was watching that scene again this morning, knowing what I know now after having read the book, which is you rolled up like an hour before you started shooting that scene.

You go to the hair and makeup trailer. Hey, nice to meet you. Roll the cameras. and that's a scene that is iconic and lives forever. And as you say, you had just met everybody. It was a world one. It was really, and it was so, and I knew it was special. I knew it was a special moment. Whether people were going to see it, I didn't know.

It was going to be a huge film. But I knew that it was going to be a great experience for me. And it was. And people, I'm sure, don't realize what you were doing while you were shooting that movie, which is continuing to shoot family ties. That was part of the deal with Gary. Like, you're still doing family ties.

Well, you'll be here all day. They're going to put you in a truck, and you're going to arrive and shoot all night on back to the future. Any hesitation about that schedule? Were you too excited about that? My mother has scheduled. My mother told me that I've been able to be made to me and I'm going to do it. And she taught better, but I said, no, you get too tired. And my husband doesn't work that way.

I've been here for three years eating garbage and dumpster diving, trying to get a job. and I'm like, I'm going to not do this. So it was, and it just all rolled so fast. Amazing. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Michael J. Fox right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Michael J. Fox. I won't walk you through the whole movie, even though I could, but the Johnny Be Good scene with the guitar.

which obviously lives in film history, and the guitar is famous, and apparently we're still looking for the guitar. Collectors want to know. There's so much happening in that scene. And you really took that seriously and trained hard to learn all the chords. Yeah.

Well, I was a guitarist. Modest talent, but I love talent. But I love to play guitar. I put in bands when I was getting. The picture's in the book of my band. Yeah. I think you say coming to a church-based near you.

Yeah, yeah. We played a lot of church basements. And we were the house band at the Naval Academy. It was a very fun because we just basically scored fights. We just play. And we'd have the biggest bouncer bodyguard times we'd find in the football team. Come to stand in front of our PAs, our speakers, so we didn't want to damage. But we just, we'd fight, and we'd play something more mell and they'd fight.

But it was really great. for a time. And my father, I remember my father coming to see us, and I'm standing in the back of the room, and he was kind of impressed. It was not his thing, but he was kind of impressed. He said that. He said, how much money do you make for this? And he said, it's $200 or $100. He said, that's really great. He said, how much do you guys should rent the equipment? It's $400. He said, get this. Like, like, like three stooges. I'm a victim of sabatouzi.

Didn't see the future for you in music, perhaps. No, but it was a great time, and I love doing that. So what was the point I was making was... Well, we were talking about the guitar, and that scene also for you has taken you to all these amazing places. It's a medley of my head. Yeah.

And it's a chapary's hit, obviously, but it was... It's been a great thing for me. I played with a lot of great musicians, and it was a zealig. I appears to me with The Who and, I mean, just everybody's the police. With Coldplay, Glastonbury. Yeah, that was really great.

We were just talking, we were at the Michael J. Fox event in Nashville a few months ago. Chris Stapleton surprises the crowd by playing Johnny Be Good. And you're up in the seats dancing to it. Incredible. Nashville thing is mentioning to be a great event. That song's taking you a long way. There's a scene in the book. Christmas, 1984, your home in Canada with your family, you've agreed to do back to the future.

And you describe it as your last brush with the old world, meaning you knew on the other side of this huge Spielberg-Zemachus movie your life was about to change. How dramatically did it change when that movie came out? A huge difference. And each of my family, they were so amazing. They did no reference to this. didn't know how to respond to it or react to it. So I was probably myself trying to do that out to them, but I would become impatient too.

And that was tricky. But my father, I think I ever had life change. My father was a great guy. He was a real tough guy. My parents both were born in the Great Depression in the Civil War II. It was the greatest generation of those people.

And I was doing the same I was asked to do in Vancouver a benefit for the symphony and they wanted me to host it and it's a black tie event so I invited my parents to come because it'll be nice in Vancouver a big deal so we get we're ready to go and I have a tuxedo on

and I walk out and I have these shoes on skull and crossbones on them and my father goes to the shoes and you can't wear those shoes and I said no I'm going to wear these shoes you can't wear the shoes it's disrespectful and I said it's not disrespectful I pulled it some, my shoes, and I look down at them, and I see, I have his tuxed around

talking to be a sydivany or I look down and I see shoes with skull and the crassbones on him. I know it's me. I'm having a laugh, and I'm saying granted, and he finally relented. But it was so funny because I loved it. My parents still, I was 24 years old, 25 years old, and it's very successful and famous the world over. My father thought, that he thought, that he could tell me what shoes I could wear.

Right. And I thought, that's good. I mean, normally I would have, I would have maybe. changes you. But I think at some level, he wanted me to keep on, too. Right, right. We're still your parents. We still have a say in this thing. They did be very thing. Unrelated to the back of the future, but when I won, when I won my first Emmy at Brown, home, Canada,

and we put it on a table and we were all sitting around, playing board games and drinking and stuff, visiting, and I went to bed, and my Emmy was on this table. I woke up the next morning. Miami was there with my dad's bowling trophy, my brother's box. and trophy, my sister's skating trophy, my mom's crib trophy, and they're all around it. That's great. Right. I'll never get out of control.

They'll keep me. You had some level of fame with family ties, but even during the shooting of Back to the Future, you write in this book, the crowds had started to gather because you were a star and about to become a bigger star. How did you come, as you say, from pretty humble roots, your family, normal people, and you're, How did you adjust to that being truly one of the most famous people on the planet in a span of a couple of years? Well, the movie helped because the movie is all about how hard we worked. And that became the galvanizing principle in my thing, was to work hard. To work hard. Never let me see it, not work hard.

And always be present for step up and not taking anything for granted. And so my life really changed a lot. But I was just sitting in my family and my friends. Get me, kept me in peace. There was a little of excess. Here's some moose heads. You're entitled to a little, weren't you? Yeah, it's all right.

Stuff like that would happen. Like, I was on tonight's show with Johnny Carson, I mentioned that I liked moose head beer. Two days later, I got up in my house. Moosehead trucked pulled up to my house. Come on. Yeah, unloading beer. See, that's real power.

when you mention something and it shows up at your house. You didn't have these kids get into trouble. There's all kinds of people that are. And that's the way to keep working. We're kind of showing. To work on the movie and start to get involved in philanthropy. Prior to Parkinson's, I got to above other things.

And it just really keeps you connected. Were your parents, Mike, just thinking about your family, were they supportive always of your, pursuit of acting. Because you said pre-family ties, you were down and out. I mean, truly down and out. Struggling actor might be an understatement. Did they always support this dream of yours? They didn't understand it, but they supported it. And they supported it under some duress. My father just said, I talked to him about I want to move to the state to be an actor. And I was 17. He said, if you want to be a lumberjack, better than name for us.

So he drove me down And they were kind of Letting me go They didn't know what to expect But they Then the courage and the belief in me To just let me go And try it

And you're a kid You're a teenager at that point I was 18 when I finally moved to the States Wow I went through three years of Before I did I got to tell him I had

Back to Future went out And at 70 and went down I got back to picture in 82 And then it just Chant did a lot of work but nothing broke through until family time. Yeah. And then it was just a whirlwind.

I can't believe him. I'm sitting here and a half. 64 years old. Four kids' wife, a career. I'm about something that I believe in a lot. For Parkinson's research and a career for Parkinson's. It's amazing. It's amazing life. The whirlwind has continued.

Stick around for more of my. conversation with Michael J. Fox right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Michael J. Fox. There's another element to the story that, again, I don't think people realize, is that you originally were not in this movie. It was a different actor, Eric Stoltz, who started the movie as Marty McFly. The team there, Spielberg and Zemeckis decided it wasn't working, and that's when they reached out to you. As an actor, did that feel odd to be stepping in, Well, it felt a little weird, but it happened so fast, as I said, they said, boom, boom, boom.

They'd gone to Gary initially, and before they hired Eric, because he thought it was available, and he said, I understandably, he said no, because he'd worked in building the show. It was his baby, and he couldn't risk, he appeared risking me going off and leaving the show. But now he'd come to this point where he'd come back, and he was a believer in. Bate and Karma and stuff so he thought come back to me

now is my chance to do the right thing for Mike and he let me do it and it's just a life change just in that moment and I got it

but thinking about what I've heard this story told by other people about how difficult it was for the film within the studio system to get made to do with these changes

that this notion of me kind of as a gunslinger hanging back outside that the Undertaker is loading up my gun getting ready to go to take over the joint and his hired gun. It wasn't that feeling at all. It was just, they didn't feel the movie was working. Eric is, as everybody knows, the matter of record, it's a great actor.

And he had just done mass, which is a great film. And, and, but once it happened, it happened so fast. There was no time to talk about, to talk about, to Bob about what the character would be like or anything of that stuff. It was just, it was just, I just showed up and did it. One of my favorite parts of the book, you talk to all these people around the movie, and you get their input and their memories, and you're sort of wondering as you read, what about Eric Stoltz? How does he feel? And then we come to the epilogue and you tell the story of reaching out to him. What was that exchange like? It was great. What I didn't want to do and I didn't do, characterize his feelings about the movie, the feelings about what happened. It's not important at this point. but what was important for me was two young guys were two 23-year-old guys actors that were in a situation beyond our control

and two of them did the best we could and I knew and I knew from anecdotal stuff people that I talked to that he was a great guy very smart guy so he came over my partner Nell who wrote the book with me I talked to being in her office which is back behind my office and we were in a closed-door conversation. And she said she couldn't hear what we were saying, but she lived hearing these gales of laughter. And she was like getting along.

So it was really cool. And I don't want to put a focus on that part of it. But I needed to mention it. And so hopefully it doesn't disrupt his life and get people to ask him about it and all that stuff. But he was really great. She just come over and we had a good time. We met again since.

And it's just weird because we shared this the end of our life. Big thing. It's a great coda to this whole story. It's really, I'm so glad that you all got together that way. Just big picture, Mike. How much fun was it to sit and relive this chapter of your life when you were on the launch pad and it all kind of took off for you? It's good.

It's kind of like listening to when I'm 64. It makes me feel both it was a long time ago and a different life. and also very much connecting to my life now and what I do, the lessons I learn about resilience and about teamwork and about there's a purpose. An end game, which is to bring them this story

to people and have them enjoy it. And in fact, they still love it. It's just amazing. They do, they do. Watch it again, you still get sucked in just like you did on that Christmas day. You can't help but watch it. It sucks you in.

It does. It does. You also, by the way, you're still, you've been acting for, continue to act and you're in the new season of shrinking. Yeah. Harrison Ford raving about you, Jason Siegel, all those guys. What kind of experience has that been?

It was great. Prince of all, Harrison is amazing. And so generous, it's so sweet. And so, like, protective of me. And it was one of the great experiences in my life. He would have really amazing. He was everything that I hoped he'd be. And he had done some work with our foundation.

He'd shut some of them up. promotional stuff. So he's connected a little bit, but he just was such a great host and it treated me so well, and it was great. It was great experience. I loved them.

He said you are essential to that show. They're so much better off for having you on it. That's the way he put it. Billy Lawrence, who was the producer, one of my producing partners on Spin City. Right. So we have a long history,

and Gary was their partner. It's all interconnected. Gary, Gary introduced me to Billy, and Billy, he asked me to do scrubs, and I started doing scrubs and started doing more shows after I retired, changed my life. And he reached out and got me again.

That's great. It's such a great show. It's good. It is good. It's nice to deal with people, the real life of people that have disabilities, and particularly health issues, brain issues. We're understood.

We're trying, we're working, we've been working for 25 years. So let's talk about that. 25 years of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I'll say here I'm on the board of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. My dad has had Parkinson's for, gosh, he was diagnosed 33 years ago. Not long after you, actually. You've raised $2.5 billion for research. Two and a half billion more is the goal.

Do you remember even 25 years ago what your hopes were for it, what the vision was, it's got to have wildly exceeded it at this point. But what was the original idea? I think the idea was just to give a voice to people that were disenfranchised and marginalized because of the disease. It was an old person's disease. There was nothing that anybody thought about. There was one drug.

That was the Cinnat, a Cine matter, Dio Doppa, which is the gold standard. That was it. I kept you to myself for seven years. And I finally got out there and told people about it. And I saw it. And I saw the opportunity. I started to meet different groups of people that worked with Parkinson's on various levels, whether research or politics.

And I just thought, this is an opportunity. This is really like you don't get tested to this as a person to step up and make a difference. And so the more I thought about it, the more I thought, I can't not do this. I have to do this. There's people, I remember talking on, going to visit chat rooms with the people that Parkinson's. And so I went anonymously on chat rooms. I said, what about this Michael Foxxing? What's that all about?

And they say, it's great. I say, it's great to you a park. And they say, yeah, it's great taste park. It's an opportunity for us. And I saw that. I thought, well, I get that. It doesn't bother me. I get that.

I get the people would be encouraged by the fact that there may be a voice there is that will speak up for the behalf and push for changes and push for new treatment. new therapies, and hopefully cure. We've really moved in that direction. What are some of the developments

that are exciting you and the team over there because it has come such a long way in those 25 years. When doing research, you fail more times they can succeed.

Find things of work and really grab onto them. We have the same PPE which is a biomarkers and the way to identify disease before symptoms are

our parents and that's been a tremendous success and we helped us find a bomb marker of a Sunuclan which is which is a indicator with a host of other clues that you're going to have partners or you so what that means is we can we can now by the time I was diagnosed with lube twitching my pinky I some 70% of the domain producing cells my brain we're already gone. If we can say you're going to have paroxys because based on a blood test or spinal tap or some other biomarker or some other indicator, we can say you're going to have paroxys, we can treat it now prophylactally before you get it. And that's a tremendous thing. We've made that a very likely scenario that we never would have thought about. And we are always

pushing other therapies and working on FDA, working with with patients, we're doing the FDA, working with, with patient groups. The other thing we've done that I've really been excited about was got patients involved. And they've never encouraged to be involved before. And they would say, my doctor doesn't want me to. She must me to take the pills and shut up. And I say, you're the expert. You're the expert.

You see your doctor. You're the expert. You're the expert. I'm so lucky. I go, my doctor, my doctor spends an hour with me. And we talk and it's not, I know that's not the case with most people. We have five, ten minutes. We get out there banging out to get it killed pills and move on. We need to make this a living functioning relationship with their doctors and with the medical community.

Everything is possible. Everything is possible. And I'm encouraged and I'm excited. I'm more exhausted, but I'll keep going and great people like you and other friends that they're on the board and get involved in other things. The aspects of the people who do the spinal tap with the biomarker know they don't have it

just as a control factor and they'll go get a spinal tap. I don't want to get a spinal tap. A voluntary spinal tap. That sucks. A wide spinal tap. Everything's possible, by the way. That might as well be your motto.

I think just knowing my own experience, sometimes people with Parkinson's the instinct is to withdraw a little bit And especially for someone like you who's in the public eye, there may have been some temptation to let people remember Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly and all those characters. Tell me about that conscious decision to step forward and say, this is what I'm going to do now. I'm going to be out there. You've never withdrawn. You always put yourself out there. You're always hopeful. You're always optimistic about treatments and research. Why did you do that? Well, first of all, screw vanity. I don't know what I look like or what. It didn't matter to me. but it's

it's been a great it's been a great experience and if I could help encourage other people to know that it's not over with a diagnosis it's not

it's not life goes on and and I think the thing that surprised me most as I say like I'll say

I can talk to somebody else for 35 years but they're not that many of us around so I know that I'm a freak free but I'm a freak

occurrence in that I've been managed to sustain this level of energy and level of

involvement and that's great it's a great gift and so I don't waste it it's really it's been amazing it's obviously the biggest thing

in my life partners and stuff the other stuff is all great and then but if I come out of this with

with with some have a really substantial change in the way Parkinson's is treated and the way that we relate to it and even find something virgin a cure

in Mays. It's so much better than any movie or any TV show. Not as good as my life and my kids and my family, but they're important. Sounds like a pretty damn good legacy you just laid out there. Like, well, lay a

Layasies. Lacey's are for dead people. I'm not there yet. Mike, congratulations on this book. It's so much fun. Fans are going to love it. And on behalf of a Parkinson's family, thank you for showing the way always.

You are a hero to so many of us. You always say, do you're going to love it? Yes. Thank you, you, love it. Yes. Great to see you, my friend. Thank you, my brother. Thank you.

My big thanks to Michael for a great conversation, always a joy and an honor to spend. spend time with him. Michael's new memoir, Future Boy, Back to the Future, and my journey through the space-time continuum is available now wherever you get your books. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear all of these conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday.

Sit Down Podcast.