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Ryan Reynolds is offering his profound gratitude to Michael J. Fox.
The Deadpool actor sings Fox’s praises in a blurb written for the 2024 TIME 100, the mag’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, published this week. In his remarks, he shares how Fox’s impact is being felt by younger generations, including the children he shares with wife Blake Lively.
“Last year I watched Back to the Future with my 8-year-old daughter,” he shares, referencing the couple’s eldest daughter, James. “It’s become her favorite film. And for now, that’s enough for me — and her. One more kid from one more generation sees what I saw.”
Reynolds and Lively, who wed in 2012, are the proud parents of four little ones. In addition to James, they also share 7-year-old daughter Inez and 4-year-old daughter Betty, as well as a one-year-old baby whose name and gender has not been made public.
“I know how lucky I am to call Mike a friend,” Reynolds continues his tribute. “She still has no idea that I know him. I don’t need to teach my daughter the level of compassion Mike has mastered. Or teach her to tell stories the way Mike tells stories. I need to teach her that it’s OK to fall a lot. It’s the absolute best way to know you’re flying.”
Reynolds says he met Fox 17 years ago and that the Spin City star helped his dad “feel less alone” amid his battle with Parkinson’s disease.
Fox, 62, was diagnosed with the progressive disorder in 1991 when he was only 29 years old.
Reynolds, 47, lost his father to Parkinson’s in 2015 and has sat on the board of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research since 2009.
“I know Michael J. Fox. Like, I know him pretty damn well,” Reynolds explains. “He’s funny. He’s warm. He’s handsome and intensely smart. He also falls a lot. Not just because he has Parkinson’s. He falls a lot because he’s unafraid to fly.”
This isn’t the first time Reynolds has written a heartfelt profile for Time. Back in 2022, he penned a piece about close pal Taylor Swift‘s then-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, for the Time100 Next.
Swift and Alwyn eventually split, with ET breaking the news in April 2023. Now, Swift will drop her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, on Friday at 12 a.m. ET. The project is expected to serve as a reference to the breakup.
Meanwhile, ET spoke with Fox earlier this month about his lasting legacy and whether he would consider a return to acting after announcing his retirement in 2020.
“My biggest goal, I think, was to raise a family. We have four amazing kids and that’s been the big thing,” Fox said in reference to his wife, Tracy Pollan, whom he met on the set of Family Ties in 1985. “And then the other is with the foundation.”
But as far as goals in front and behind the camera?
“If someone offers me a part and I do it and I have a good time, great,” Fox told ET. “I mean, the documentary was a big thrill.”
The documentary being his new project, Still, an AppleTV+ documentary that chronicles his health battle.
“It was fun,” Fox said of filming the doc. “I never would have set that as a goal. It just happened.”
Like Reynolds, Fox is also a dad to four kids — although his are now grown. Fox shares 34-year-old son Sam, 29-year-old twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, and 22-year-old daughter Esmé with Pollan.
When ET spoke with Reynolds in late 2022, he joked about the size of his growing brood.
“We’re very excited,” Reynolds shared. “You’d have to be a moron to do this four times if you didn’t like it.”
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