Ryan Reynolds and
Michael J. Fox have been starring together for years now — not in front of the
camera, but as friends united in the personal goal of finding a cure for
Parkinson’s disease.
Reynolds got
involved with the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research in 2008, and has since joined the organization’s board
of directors. Like Fox, Reynolds’ father has had the disease for many years.
Video: The two actors sit down with Willie Geist to
talk about working together to help find a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
Reynolds’ father also suffers from the illness.
FoxFeed Blog
The actors sat
down with TODAY’s Willie Geist, whose dad also has Parkinson’s, before the Fox foundation’s
annual gala in New York on Saturday.
Geist asked
Reynolds if he remembered his father telling him and his brothers that he had
Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease with motor symptoms that include tremors, rigidity and balance problems.
“I have a slightly
different, weird, strange story about that because my father really hasn't ever
said he has Parkinson's disease,” Reynolds said with a laugh, adding that his
dad is in his 70s.
“He comes from
a pretty prideful generation,” he said. “And he doesn't
really talk about it too much. But, he’s maybe said it once or twice out loud.”
Still, Jim
Reynolds’ 1995 diagnosis helped rally the family.
“It kind of
galvanized everybody else, to sort of seek resources,” the actor said. “And for us, it's in a strange
way, it's really kind of brought us together.”
Geist, whose
father, “CBS Sunday Morning” correspondent Bill Geist, revealed his
two-decade-old diagnosis in 2012, agreed that Parkinson’s can
bring people together.
“If there's any
upside to it, it's that it has rallied an awful lot of people,” Geist said.
Fox was diagnosed
in 1991 at age 29 but didn’t announce it publicly until 1998. He recalled
keeping his diagnosis to himself and close family members at a time when he was
at the height of his career, with a growing family.
“It’s a
degenerative, progressive disease,” Fox said. “And,” he added, “also there's
shame in illness.”
Now, Fox said that
in his house, his family — he and his wife, Tracy Pollan, have four children — helps him by pulling
a chair out a little bit for him. Reynolds joked that maybe they were doing
that so the TV and film star would fall to the ground.
Though they can
laugh, they also serious about finding a cure for the disease, which affects an
estimated500,000 to 1 million Americans.
Geist noted that
he wears a Fox foundation bracelet everywhere he goes. Reynolds said he was
wearing “rubberized, galvanized Michael J. Fox underwear.”
As Fox has become
almost as well known for being the force against Parkinson’s disease as he is
for starring in “Back to the Future,” does he ever tire of being the public
face of the disease?
“I really don't,”
Fox said. “Once I made my diagnosis known, it’s been a tremendous opportunity
and a tremendous privilege.”
For more
information on the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, visithttps://www.michaeljfox.org/
Lisa A. Flam is a
news and lifestyles reporter in New York. Follow her on Twitter.
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