Hi °C | Lo °C 
Michael J Fox has revealed he asked his family if they were okay with him using them as material for his new TV show.
The 51-year-old actor - who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991 and retired from hit show Spin City 12 years ago due to his health - is producing and starring in a new comedy about a TV news presenter who retires when he is diagnosed with Parkinson's, but then decides to return to work five years later.
Michael told US chat show host David Letterman: "The whole show is liberal doses of my family. I said to my kids there's going to be a lot of your stuff in the show, and I said, 'How do you feel about that?' and they said they were okay with it, and I said, that's good because I paid for it anyway!"
He joked: "I own the material, I have the intellectual property rights!"
Michael - who is father to son Sam, 23, twin daughters Aquinnah and Schuyler, 17, and 11-year-old daughter Esme with wife and Family Ties co-star Tracy Pollan - said he was keen to return to acting, and realised that writing himself a character with Parkinson's was the best way.
He said: "I did a few episodes of The Good Wife and I did Curb Your Enthusiasm and a few things and I just like it and I thought I wasn't doing a lot of work... and I just thought, 'As long as I play a guy with Parkinson's, I can do anything!'"
