He has spent three decades turning his own suffering into fuel for hope, but Michael J. Fox is no longer sugarcoating the toll. In a recent interview, he spoke with raw honesty about Parkinson’s “getting tougher,” describing the spinal surgery for a benign tumor that wrecked his balance and left him with multiple fractures. The man who once joked his way through tremors now talks openly about mortality, insisting, “You don’t die from Parkinson’s. You die with Parkinson’s,” and conceding, with heartbreaking clarity, “I’m not gonna be 80.”

Yet even inside that stark admission lives the same stubborn light that has defined him. Fox continues to push research, raise millions, and lend his name and face to a fight that may outlast him. He may doubt his years, but he refuses to doubt his purpose—and that, he seems to say, is how he’ll finish this battle.