Shrinking creator Bill Lawrence said his long friendship with Michael J Fox influenced the way Parkinson’s disease is portrayed on the award winning dramady.
In Shrinking, Harrison Ford’s character Paul, a mental health professional, has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a brain disorder which can cause tremors, stiffness, balance and coordination difficulties and painful muscle contractions, according to the Mayo Clinic.
At An Evening with Shrinking at PaleyLive on December 12, Lawrence, 56, told People that his dad and co-creator Brett Goldstein’s father have both been diagnosed with the disease.
‘It’s cool to get to write about things you care about now,’ the Emmy winner said.
‘And Michael J. Fox is my first mentor. So we wanted to represent it in hopefully an inspiring and not sad or tragic way.’
Lawrence and Fox worked together on the hit comedy Spin City, which aired from 1996-2002.
Michael J Fox, 63, served as the inspiration for Harrison Ford’s character Paul on the award winning comedy Shrinking. ‘Michael J. Fox is my first mentor. So we wanted to represent it in hopefully an inspiring and not sad or tragic way,’ said co-creator Bill Lawrence
In 1998, the Back to the Future star, 63, revealed he had been diagnosed with the disorder.
‘I found the first mentor in my life and career, Michael J. Fox, to be so inspiring with the way he took it in stride and continues to work harder than anybody I know,’ the writer and director explained.
‘And we want to kind of carry that spirit, if we can, into the show.’
Season two concluded on December 24 on Apple TV+.
Lawrence revealed he already has plans for season three and Paul’s journey revealing he is ‘obsessed with showing the portrait of living with it.’
‘I suck in the inspiring people around me, and I steal from them as much as I possibly can,’ he explained, adding that he ‘generally has kind of attacked tough situations with comedy in his actual life,.’
‘It takes you a while as a writer to realize what your voice is — I think mine is hopeful and optimistic by nature.’
Lawrence, 56, first worked with Fox on the hit sitcom Spin City, which aired from 1996-2002. Fox revealed his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis in 1998 and found ‘Michael J. Fox, to be so inspiring with the way he took it in stride and continues to work harder than anybody I know’
Ford, 82, said he takes his portrayal of Paul ‘deadly f**king seriously.’ ‘There are people that absorb these kinds of experiences with grace and courage and a little bit of wisdom,” he said, and that is something that I feel that is worth sharing with our audience’ (Pictured in Los Angeles on December 13)
Ford, 82, said he takes his portrayal of Paul ‘deadly f**king seriously.’
‘There are people that absorb these kinds of experiences with grace and courage and a little bit of wisdom,” he said.
‘It’s just to say that this is a person particularly equipped to communicate what it’s like, and that is something that I feel that is worth sharing with our audience.’
‘I feel like I’m telling a story,’ the Oscar nominee explained. ‘The story I’m telling is a story that I know, and so I can just simply feel it.’
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