Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox’s Friendship, Explained
The beloved stars have supported each other on and off screen—and now they’re raising awareness about Parkinson’s together
Key Takeaways
- Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox have built a friendship spanning more than two decades.
- The stars finally worked together on ‘Shrinking,’ where Fox played a Parkinson’s patient.
- Ford has joined Fox in raising awareness and supporting the search for a Parkinson’s cure.
Star Wars star Harrison Ford and Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox recently teamed up for a video aimed at teaching people how to talk to their friends after they tell you they have Parkinson’s, a disease Fox was diagnosed with in 1991. The lighthearted, heartwarming clip is filled with the humor the actors are known for.
“It’s not the years that make Harrison and me friends, it’s the mileage,” Fox wrote on Instagram. “Huge thanks to Harrison Ford for helping The Michael J. Fox Foundation spread the word on Parkinson’s and keep pushing toward a cure.”
But what is that mileage Fox is talking about? We break down Fox and Ford’s friendship, and reveal if they plan to work together again, below!
The beginning of Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox’s friendship
Ford, 84, and Fox, 65, were two of the most iconic actors in the 1980s. Ford took the big screen by storm, starring in the Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones films. Fox, on the other hand, was capturing people’s hearts as Alex P. Keaton in the hit sitcom Family Ties and Marty McFly in the time-traveling epic Back to the Future. Because of that, the two were often in each other’s orbits at events and award shows, but they didn’t really connect in 2004, when both attended former first lady Nancy Reagan’s charity event dedicated to finding cures for illnesses like Alzheimer’s, which her late husband, Ronald had.
“I’m sure I was very excited to see Harrison,” Fox said, per Vanity Fair. “And Nancy Reagan—she was a force.”
Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox teamed up for ‘Shrinking’ Season 3
The two didn’t work together professionally until Fox accepted a role in Ford’s Emmy-winning show Shrinking, which was co-created by Bill Lawrence, who also worked with Fox on the hit show Spin City from 1992 to 2001.
In Season 3 of Shrinking, Fox played Gerry, a Parkinson’s patient who comforts Ford’s character, Paul, after he is diagnosed with the disease.
“The thing with Harrison is he was just so lovely. I didn’t know what to expect, we certainly have a lot of mutual friends and acquaintances and people who we work with, Bob Z. [Zemeckis] and Steven Spielberg. I wasn’t nervous, but I knew he’d be cool. But I didn’t know he’d be as cool as he was and sweet to me,” Fox told the L.A. Times in January of this year. “Then we started to act. He found something in the character, and in my character, and he just launched into it. I was like, ‘No wonder this guy’s one of the biggest stars in the world.’’
Fox appeared in three episodes, but did say that he was willing to return if given the chance.
“I would absolutely do that in a heartbeat,” he told People magazine in April of this year. “I love Bill and I’m so happy it’s a success. And it’s such a great time being with those actors.”
Where Harrison Ford and Michael J. Fox stand now
Since working together on Shrinking, Fox and Ford have remained close. Ford has even become an advocate for finding a cure for Parkinson’s.
“Thirty-five years ago, Michael J. Fox got some very bad news. Most people handed something like that to endure it; Michael went right to work,” Ford said, per The News Daily. “Playing Paul Rhoades on Shrinking gave me some understanding of what it means to live with Parkinson’s and it also gave me Michael, as an actor, as a friend and the most stubborn optimist I know. Through him, I’ve seen what his foundation does.”
As mentioned above, Ford recently appeared in a video with Fox promoting the foundation.
“Michael has a remarkable way of making difficult things easier to talk about, and that’s part of what makes working with him and being his friend so special,” Ford told Town and Country of the video. “We wanted to bring some of that honesty and humor to a conversation that a lot of people may not know how to have.”
You can watch the full video starring Fox and Ford here!
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