The first seven years after his 1991 diagnosis were spent in denial and depression, he says in the documentary “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” which premiered Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival.
Hiding became a virtual side hustle as he worked on films and television projects, popping dopamine pills as if they were Smarties candies.
The pills are used for Parkinson’s, which is characterized by a loss of dopamine that causes tremors and other uncontrollable movements and progresses slowly over time as the affected neurons die. Fox says he washed the pills down with alcohol, timing everything to keep his acting intact.
“Therapeutic value, comfort – none of these were the reason I took these pills. There was only one reason: to hide,” Fox says in the documentary, according to USA Today. “I became a virtuoso of manipulating drug intake so that I’d peak at exactly the right time and place.”