Actor Michael J. Fox revealed his biggest career regret to actress Whoopi Goldberg — and it just so happened to be the fact that he had once turned down a film role opposite her: “Ghost.”
Fox joined Goldberg and her cohosts for Friday’s broadcast of ABC midday talk show “The View,” and the “Back to the Future” star admitted that he had been approached about the 1990 hit film — which Goldberg starred in alongside the late actor Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, and Tony Goldwyn.
WATCH:
.@realmikefox tells #WhoopiGoldberg that his biggest career regret was turning down a role in her 1990 hit film 'Ghost.'
"I said, 'Whoopi's great but it will never work.' And then it was great and huge…" https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/lcuS2sPSHv— The View (@TheView) May 19, 2023
“So, are there any roles you regret turning down?” Goldberg asked the “Spin City” star.
“There was a chance to work with you that I missed,” Fox replied, and Goldberg recoiled in apparent shock.
“They talked to me about ‘Ghost’ early on. I said, ‘It’ll never work.’ I said, ‘Whoopi’s great, but it’ll never work.’ And then it was great and huge, and I’m a f***ing idiot,'” Fox continued.
“There’s still time!” Goldberg replied, promising that the two would “find something” to work on together.
Fox recently made headlines with the heartbreaking prediction that he would not live to see 80 years old.
“I’m not gonna be 80,” Fox, 61, told veteran journalist Jane Pauley during a recent interview. He went on to explain that while he felt as though he had done a lot with the time he had been given, there would eventually come a day when his Parkinson’s Disease called the shots.
“Yeah, it’s, it’s banging on the door. I’m not gonna lie. It’s gettin’ hard, it’s gettin’ harder. It’s gettin’ tougher. Every day it’s tougher,” he said.
Fox, who was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s Disease when he was just 29 years old, continued to work for a number of years until his symptoms made that impossible. In recent years, he said that it’s the unsteadiness that has proved the most dangerous, making him more likely to fall and hurt himself.
“You don’t die from Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s,” he explained.