‘Still’ Director Davis Guggenheim Jokes That He’s Currently “Out of Work”: “Tell Apple TV to Fire Me!”

Davis Guggenheim’s 2023 Apple TV+ documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Story has reached global acclaim and is a shoo-in for this year’s awards circuit, having received a 99% critic approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes from over a hundred reviews. The movie was also a notable mention during the Museum of the Moving Image’s 2023 Spring Awards on Tuesday (June 6) where Michael J. Fox took home a lifetime achievement award. But while Guggenheim is reveling in the successes, he’s also “happily” taking a break from work. 

Decider spoke with Guggenheim at the recent event and asked him if he has anything lined up next. “No, I’m out of work,” he said, echoing the sentiment when further asked if he has his eye on a new interview subject.

He continued to joke, “Tell Apple TV to fire me!” but added that he is “happily out of work.”

Following the release of Still, Guggenheim served as an executive producer on Netflix’s Working: What We Do All Day docuseries, which was also produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Grounds Productions, and four episodes of HBO’s Burden of Proof. 

While speaking with Decider, Guggenheim said it was “easy” to build a rapport with Fox. “He’s a warm-hearted, funny guy. He trusted me and that’s not always the case. A lot of subjects will take their time to trust you or never trust you, and he was just like a complete open book,” he said. “I think part of it is the stage of life he’s in. He just wants to tell a story.”

And when it came to telling his story, nothing was off the table. “He [Fox] was like, ‘I trust you – go!’ But he said one thing to me: ‘no violence,’ which means no maudlin, no sad, no pity. And I said, ‘I don’t want to make a film about Parkinson’s.’ Now the movie has Parkinson’s in it, but it’s really about his life, all the obstacles he’s had to overcome, not specifically about the details of the disease,” shared the director.

Guggenheim has been making movies since 1991 and has directed high-profile projects like 2007’s An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. But there’s one thing he’s particularly proud about with Still and it’s that Fox is “being seen differently now.” He said, “People love him as Marty McFly, but now they’re seeing a deeper, richer character. They’re seeing a short kid from Canada who wanted to be hugely famous. He didn’t want to change the world but then life kind of threw him a curveball with Parkinson’s and he became this extraordinary guy, almost accidentally. That’s pretty special.”

When it came to the night’s event, Guggenheim expressed that he’s happy Fox is getting his dues and is “being seen for more than just the pieces of his work.” The award ceremony, which also honored John Wilson with an Innovative Series Award, featured talks from David Byrne, Martin Scorsese and Guggenheim, with the latter three speaking of Fox’s achievements. In addition, the Back to the Future actor was given a video tribute by his former colleagues Connie Britton, Alan Ruck and Richard Kind. 

While introducing the award, Guggenheim said to Fox, “When I consider all the choices you made in your life, the little ones and the big ones, I see a person who has had a lifetime with the kind of achievement I admired the most.”

At the end of the ceremony, Fox took the stage to accept the Lifetime Achievement Award, during which he said, “I don’t have a weepy, sad life. I have this thing that happened [to me] that really sucks, but put me in a position to do other things that were effective and have perhaps made things better.”