-Well, that's where you guys met, right?
On the set of "Family Ties"? -Yeah.
-I have a picture of you guys from back in the day.
Look at that. How cute.
Future best couple. Come on.
[ Cheers and applause ]
How cute.
-You're very smirky.
-Well, you're still pretending to be shorter than me.
[ Laughter ]
-You were helping him out. -She's bending the knees.
-I don't do that any more.
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. -Exactly.
-Yeah. Did you guys know each other before this?
-No. -No.
-Oh, really? Had you heard of each other?
-No. [ Laughter ]
-Not now, I mean, back then.
-Tracy had heard of me, but hadn't met me,
hadn't seen any of my work.
And I knew she was a theater actress in New York, so I --
and I was, like, this hack comedic guy from L.A.
-I doubt that you were a hack. Oh, please.
-A lot of pressure, but she was great.
-Was this "Back to the Future"?
-No, so what happened was,
I had been asked to come in and screen-test for "Family Ties."
-Yeah.
-But I had never watched the show,
and I actually had heard his name --
-Not a fan.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, that's hilarious.
-And so, "Back to the Future" had just come out.
And I thought, "Well, I better go watch it
'cause I have no idea, like, who he is and what is he --"
-Really? -So I went by myself.
I sat down at the theater on 86th Street and I saw it.
And I thought, "Oh, this guy,
actually, like, maybe has a future."
[ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ]
-That is the best.
Maybe, yeah. You think?
And then here you are, is it 30 years later?
-Yeah. -30 years.
-Holy moly. Congratulations. [ Cheers and applause ]
That is amazing. That is amazing.
Do you have any -- I know your family.
I'm lucky enough to have met your kids,
and they're all awesome, by the way.
You did a great job raising them.
-Thank you. -Any secrets for anyone
for keeping a marriage strong for 30 years?
-Well, as the glib one would say, I just feel funny
saying 'cause my daughter's in the audience,
but keep the sex dirty and the fights clean.
-There you go. [ Laughter ]
-They're so happy.
-The kids, they're so embarrassed of Dad right now.
Oh, my gosh. [ Laughter ]
They just walked out.
They just walked out of the audience.
They just walked out.
They're like, "Dad, I can't believe you said that!
So gross."
-That is literally like -- -I know.
Keep the sex dirty and the fights clean.
I love it.
Today is World Parkinson's Day.
Obviously you know that. -Yeah.
-What are you doing --
Can you tell everybody what you're doing after this?
-Well, I'm not doing -- maybe you misunderstood me,
I'm not going over there,
but they're lighting the Empire State Building
in orange tonight for the foundation.
-They are? -It's so cool.
-Yeah, so if you see the Empire State Building
and it's orange, it's because of World Parkinson's Day.
-Yeah. [ Cheers and applause ]
Michael, can we talk about the foundation,
the Michael J. Fox Foundation,
everything you're doing for Parkinson's?
How much money have you raised for this?
-It's unbelievable, but since we began 20 years ago,
we've raised $800 million.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-$800 million. Unbelievable.
And what is the next things or what --
-Well, what we're hoping to do, obviously,
our ultimate goal is to find a cure and go out of business.
[ Laughter ]
Like, we went into business to go out of business.
-Yeah, exactly.
-But what we're really zoning in on now is a lot of
different stuff that's over my paygrade to understand.
But we're zoning in on what are the precursors to Parkinson's.
Who's gonna get it before they get it.
And then we can give them -- treat them with something.
Hopefully figure out some way to forestall it
and stop symptoms from ever developing.
Stop progression from ever happening.
And it may not be a cure, but I would take it.
-Yeah, exactly.
-If I was someone coming up -- in terms of immediate treatment,
we passed some things through the FDA already,
and we've made a lot of progress.
-That's amazing what you're doing.
-Exciting, exciting stuff. -That's just unbelievable.
That's so cool. [ Cheers and applause ]
Thank you for doing that. That's cool.
Let's talk about the book.
Here you are. "Mostly Plants."
This is a -- You wrote this with your sister and your mom?
-With my mother and my two sisters -- Laurie and Dana.
-How cool is that? It's a great book, by the way.
-And my brother Michael wrote the foreword for it.
-Yeah. That's what it's kind of based off of, right, his quote?
-It's his quote. His haiku.
Eat foods. -Is it a haiku?
-I don't -- -It's a poem.
-It is a haiku 'cause it's got the right amount of words.
-Oh, it has the right amount of syllables?
-Is it five, seven, five?
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
That's what he said, and it's a great quote.
And what is flexitarian 'cause I've never even heard of that.
-So, flexitarian is a mostly vegetarian diet.
It's primarily vegetarian,
but you can still eat some meats and fishes if, you know,
you're someone who loves meat,
you don't have to completely give it up.
So these are recipes that are mostly plant-based,
but there are also recipes
that have fish in them and meat in them.
And it's also about just kind of changing the ratio
of the protein/meat on your plate.
So you have primarily grains and vegetables and fruits,
and then just -- -Interesting.
-A smaller amount of the meat protein.
-Have you always been flexitarian?
-I was vegetarian for most of my life.
And then with my second pregnancy,
I just couldn't get enough iron or protein.
It was really difficult for me.
So then I started to slowly add a little bit of meat back in.
So now I'm most -- I'm mostly vegetarian.
-Mostly plants. -I'm a flexitarian.
-Hence the title, yeah.
-And Michael also didn't realize it, but he is flexitarian.
[ Laughter ]
-When did you -- When did you realize
that you were flexitarian?
-I realized I was flexitarian when I could flex more than I --
[ Laughter ] -Yeah. Flexing, yeah.
Have you test-drived all these recipes?
-Yeah, this is what my life tastes like.
-Yeah. That's fantastic. -It's fantastic.
-Yeah.
-I get to taste all those recipes
before they hit the pages, and they're great.
The only thing I had to learn not to do was --
and this is -- I'm a Canadian.
I'm a schlub, real class guy,
and so I put salt and pepper on everything.
So, the last thing you want to do is,
if your wife is a great cook and makes a great meal --
-Wait, you put salt and pepper before you taste it.
-Yeah, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Dude, I do that too, yeah.
-Yeah, well, it comes, and I put salt and pepper on it,
and then I go, what is this?
-Out of habit, yeah. You just have to do that.
-It'll go well with the pepper that I'm putting on it.
But you don't do that. -No.
-I assume I've seasoned it well.
-Don't do that -- yeah, if you have a great cook for a wife.
Absolutely, yeah.
I got to say, I love cookbooks, but sometimes I read a cookbook
and I go, "I'm never gonna make that. I can't do that."
There's things in here that I can do, and I'm an idiot.
And I love it. -That sounds good.
-It's a great book, and the photos are great too.
Congratulations on this book.
It's available for preorder right now, you guys.
"Mostly Plants."
Tracy Pollan, Michael J. Fox, everybody.