Back to the Future star Lea Thompson has admitted that things weren’t immediately plain sailing with lead actor Michael J Fox.
Thompson played Lorraine Baines-McFly, the teenage version of the character that grows up to be the mother of Marty McFly, played by Fox, who made a surprise appearance with Coldplay at Glastonbury earlier this year.
While Fox made the role of Marty his own over three films, released from 1985 to 1990, he was originally unavailable to play the role due to his commitments to the hit sitcom Family Ties. The role went to Mask and Pulp Fiction actor Eric Stoltz instead.
However, after shooting several scenes, director Robert Zemeckis felt that Stoltz was not a right fit for the role, with writer and producer Bob Gale telling People in 2015: “The comedy just wasn’t working out with him. We thought he would be OK and we were wrong.”
Fortunately, Zemeckis and Gale were able to convince the producer of Family Ties to let Fox shoot Back to the Future around the show’s schedule, and scenes that Stoltz had already filmed were re-shot – including numerous interactions with Thompson.
Thompson has reflected on this on a new podcast, with Still Here Hollywood host Steve Kmetko asking her if she “hit it off right away” with Fox. The actor replied: “Probably not because I was friends with Eric Stoltz, who had just gotten fired.”
Thompson had a previous working relationship with Stoltz having starred alongside him in 1984’s The Wild Life. She would go on to work with him again in the 1987 film Some Kind of Wonderful.
Christopher Lloyd, who played Emmett “Doc” Brown in the franchise, previously said Stoltz’s firing confused him and left the film’s set feeling “like a wake”.
However, both Lloyd and Thompson soon struck up a good relationship with Fox.
For the film’s 30th anniversary in 2015, she told People: “He knew exactly how to get a laugh where he needed to get a laugh. He just knew how to pick up the pace and move things along and get a laugh falling down when he needed to.
“He just was really skilled, and he bumped up the tone of the movie.”
