Actor Michael J. Fox has shared a heartbreaking admission about how he would prefer to die following his decades-long battle with Parkinson's disease.
The Back To The Future star, 64, has been battling Parkinson's disease since he was in his late 20s, and has spent years campaigning to raise awareness and vital funds for research into finding a cure.
He has also been open with his fans about how the disease has progressed for him and how it affects his daily life, with him now being prone to suffering falls and hurting himself.
In a new interview, Fox admitted that he would not like one of these falls to end up being the cause of his death, instead preferring to slip away in his sleep.
He told The Sunday Times newspaper: "There’s no timeline [with Parkinson's disease], there’s no series of stages that you go through - not in the same way that you would, say, with prostate cancer. It’s much more mysterious and enigmatic.
"There are not many people who have had Parkinson’s for 35 years. I’d like to just not wake up one day. That’d be really cool. I don’t want it to be dramatic. I don’t want to trip over furniture, smash my head."
Maintaining the humor he is known for, Fox then joked: "That’s another thing too, about dying. I just haven’t had time."
Fox revealed that he has cut back on how much he walks as he needs to "take it easy" after having broken several bones in recent years.
He explained: "It’s absolutely incredible the stuff I broke. In a three-year period I broke my elbow, I broke my hand, I got a big infection in my hand and I almost lost my finger.
"It’s terrible. I had all these little bones broken and it got infected and they had to cut the bones out because the bones got infected.
"I broke my other shoulder, had it replaced. I broke my cheekbone."
Fox added: "I take it easy now. I don’t walk that much any more. I can walk but it’s not pretty and it’s a bit dangerous. So I just roll that into my life, you know - no pun intended."
The beloved star recently came out of acting retirement to appear in the comedy-drama series Shrinking, and says it reignited his love of the craft.
He told Variety: "I see other people’s work, and it makes me think that I might be able to find something that’s for me as an actor and as a writer. And as a parent, husband and friend, I have a lot left to do."
Returning to acting wasn't without its challenges a Fox admitted he still encounters "new challenges" with Parkinson's, explaining: "I wake up and get the message of what the day is gonna be like, and I try to adjust to it.
"I keep getting new challenges physically, and I get through it. I roll around in a wheelchair a lot, and it took some getting used to. You take the good, and you seize it."
When it comes to working on Shrinking, he revealed: "It was the first time ever I get to show up on-set, and I didn’t have to worry about am I too tired or coughing or anything. I just do it.
"It was really good, because for the moments when I say: ‘I’m not going to be able to do this,’ then I say: ‘Well, I’ll just deal with how I can’t do it in the scene.’ And you get through it."