Michael J. Fox, living with Parkinson's, has new perspective on kindness 

Michael J. Fox, who retired from acting two years ago as the Parkinson's disease with which he was diagnosed in 1991 made memorizing lines near-impossible, says that through his travails he has learned new perspectives about kindness.

"At this stage of my life," the five-time Emmy Award winner says in a video accompanying a People magazine interview posted Wednesday, "I think kindness is about allowing other people to be who they are, and being comfortable enough to be who I am and knowing that one doesn't compromise the other. … [W]e can be very different, but if we meet at that common ground of kindness, at least you're going to ... [treat] the other guy in a nice way and you hope he does the same for you."

He added, "Life is easier when we're nice to each other, when we're good to each other."

Fox, whose colleagues throughout his decadeslong career have lauded his kindheartedness and consideration, solidified this understanding after "a period of time where — and I held no grudge about it — but it's just clear that the world was lining up to kick my ... [rear end]." In addition to his 92-year-old mother Phyllis dying last month, Fox said in the print portion of the interview that through falls due to Parkinson's, "I broke my cheek, then my hand, then my shoulder, had a replacement shoulder put in and broke my [right] arm, then I broke my elbow."

"I went through a lot of stuff," he reflects in the video. "And I came out the other side of it more kind."

The 61-year-old star added, "Life is interesting. It deals you these things." Citing a passage in his 2020 memoir "No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality," he said that "with gratitude, optimism is sustainable. … If I can find gratitude in whatever I do, in whatever the situation is, if I can find one little thing to be grateful for, then it reverses the whole situation."

Wednesday morning, Fox posted on Instagram, "When in doubt, just be kind."

In a more physical sense, he says in the People print article, "I'm coming through where the last of my injuries are healing up; my arm is feeling good." His "mission" now, he says is, "Don't fall down. So whatever works to not fall down, whether it's a walker or a wheelchair, a cane, a guy with a belt around my waist holding onto it — I use all those tools."

And he walked unassisted across a stage at the recent New York Comic Con for a brief reunion with his "Back to the Future" co-star Christopher Lloyd. "I'm just getting to where I'm walking steadily again," he says. "I think it's cool to walk by myself. It is. It's fantastic."

The star of such films as the "Back to the Future" trilogy (1985-1990), "Doc Hollywood" (1991) and "The Frighteners" (1996), as well as TV's "Family Ties" (NBC, 1982-89) and the first four seasons of "Spin City" (ABC, 1996-2002), Fox was diagnosed with the progressive nervous-system disorder Parkinson’s in 1991 and went public with in 1998.

Fox and his Woodbury-raised wife, actor Tracy Pollan, 61, were part-time Quogue residents until selling their home there last year. The couple have four children: son Sam, 33, twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, 27, and daughter Esmé, who turns 21 on Nov. 3.