Once you have had that spotlight, no matter how intrusive, it is difficult to walk away. He admits he need never work again but quickly adds:' There are still parts that I want to play. Money doesn't enter into it.' But it does. There's $50 million dollars invested in the jokey thriller chiller ‘The Frighteners' -- despite the effects the budget was lower because of the down down under filming -- and Fox clearly welcomed the challenge to play the psychic conman turned ghostbuster. It was only his first move back as a high-profile player. In September his new television series ‘ Spin City ' -- expected on Friday nights on Channel 4 after Christmas -- began on America 's ABC TV network. With a prime time Tuesday night slot the series which reunited Fox with ‘Family Ties' creator Gary David Goldberg casts him as a fast-talking aide to New York 's mayor. ABC were so confident of Fox's popularity that they guaranteed the series a five year run. ‘Yeah, that's sort of nice but it rather puts the pressure on. Television has changed so much in such a short time. Today in a series it's about scenes that are thirty seconds long. Ideas don't have to be wrapped up at the end of the show. I grew up on ‘'Mad'' magazine and ‘'Monty Python'' -- not mean comedy at the expense of other people. Jerry Seinfeld had a lot to do with the comedic freedom we have now. ‘But it's not just the style of TV that's changed but the way it's done. It's all faster, neater ... different. I said to my partner on the show that I want he and I to be the oldest people on it. I want lots of new people with the new ideas. You've got to keep moving on.' He has not been concerned about the pause in his career:' I was lucky enough to have things happen for me early in my life. I've been given the luxury that a lot of people in their 30s don't have which is to be able to stop chasing after a dollar and just focus on making my family's life as comfortable as possible. Life on the farm helps me do that. ‘I kind of became a poster boy for yuppie scum in the 80s -- I kind of embodied that whole drive to achieve but it wasn't the way I felt at all. Those days of succeeding at all costs are over. People are hung-over from all that greed and striving. All that chasing after something and then when you get it wondering if it is worth it...' He started chasing his dreams when he was 15. He auditioned to play ‘a bright ten-year-old'. ‘Given that I was 15 I thought I'd be the brightest ten-year-old ever and I was right. I moved to the States when I was 18 and I still looked younger -- 14 or 15 -- and because of the strict child labour laws I ended up playing young kids because I was cheaper than having to hire teachers and child minders for the real kids. ‘Then that dried up and I was flat broke. I was pretty much done for. I was just ready to move back to Canada and try another line of work when, at the last moment, I was offered ‘' Family Ties'' and thinks changed in a matter of two weeks. I went from being in no tax bracket to the worst possible one. ‘It was like winning the lottery. I was 20-years-old. Everything kind of exploded around me. ‘People who have been through this kind of experience, this sort of fame, will tell you there's a lot of pressure, a bad side to it all, but trust me there's a lot of good stuff too. I try to keep everything in perspective. There's no way I can live up to everything I've been given, now I can prove I'm worth what I have. I just can't do it. There's no way I can stand beside someone who busts their ass supporting five kids and drives a cab and say I'm worth more than this person. I just can't do it. ‘I consider myself incredibly lucky to do this for a living and incredibly lucky to make the kind of living I do. And beyond that I'm no different from the guy who parks my car. I just get out of it before he gets into it to park it. ‘I know about lucky and timing, Therefore, when someone says I've failed or my films have failed I say you can't possibly expect me to take that pressure. I can't take that responsibility. ‘If somebody calls me a miserable piece of shit and a lousy actor there's nothing I can do and I don't worry about it. Now. I used to obsess about it. At first, with all the early success, when 99 people say you're great and one person takes a shot at you it hurts. But you get used to it. ‘Now, if I do something that appeals to everyone then I'm not taking risks and I enjoy taking risks. I'm proud of most things I've done that haven't done well.' So, nothing haunts him? ‘No,' says the star of a film with a haunted house packed with myriad spooks, demons and subplots and human-like bumps moving grotesquely through the carpets and flocked wallpaper. He calls himself a ‘borderline spiritual guy' but admits: ‘I'm superstitious. I believe in karma and all that stuff. But I don't believe in ghosts. I'm not going to look for them in a seance or call the number of the psychic hotline. And I live in a 200-year-old house in Vermont with a graveyard at the back. If they want to show up at my place I'll be happy to see them.' It's more likely that fame will return to haunt him.
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