At the time, he shared that his battle with Parkinson’s, with which he was diagnosed in 1991 at age 29 and made public seven years later, had complicated his ability to memorize lines.

“The nascent diminishment in my ability to download words and repeat them verbatim is just the latest ripple in the pond,” he wrote in a statement. “There are reasons for my lapses in memorization—be they age, cognitive issues with the disease, distraction from the constant sensations of Parkinson’s, or lack of sensation because of the spine—but I read it as a message, an indicator.” 

“There is a time for everything, and my time of putting in a twelve-hour workday, and memorizing seven pages of dialogue, is best behind me,” he said, before adding, “At least for now…”

And Fox eventually heard that siren call to return in Shrinking, which also stars Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Christa Miller and Lukita Maxwell, calling series creator Bill Lawrence—whom he’d first worked with on Spin City—about a potential role.