Michael J. Fox Is Just Realizing His Performance in BACK TO THE FUTURE Was Really Good
When you think back to the greatest movies in the ‘80s, you rarely come across a list that doesn’t include Back to the Future. The film, as well as its subsequent sequels, hold up, and remain favorites of movie fans everywhere. But it took all these decades for star Michael J. Fox to realize just how good he was in those films.
In a recent interview with Empire to promote Fox’s new documentary, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, the actor explained the difficulty he had in starring in the network series Family Ties, while simultaneously shooting Back to the Future. It was because of the workload that he thought his performance in the film suffered. He explained:
“I saw it back when it came out, at the Cinerama Dome, which was insanity, then I hadn’t seen it in its entirety until a couple of years ago. It was Christmas. We were decorating the tree… I went to go get something from the kitchen and I was gone quite a while. Tracy came and found me and I was watching TV. I said, ‘Look, Back To The Future’s on TV! You know what, I’m really good in this!’ She said, ‘Yeah, we know.’ ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me?!’”
He went on to talk about how he didn’t know the movie would be a success:
“I thought this would all soon be over. I thought they’d see what I’d done, I’d go back to the back of the pack and start again.” When it came out, he was in London – and soon got wind that Back To The Future was a massive hit. “My agent said, ‘You don’t understand. This is the biggest thing in the world.’ My first instinct was, ‘I have to get back to America! There are girls to meet!’”
And the rest is history. Fox also described in the interview his take on two of his other films, saying:
“Casualties Of War, I felt that movie was really misunderstood,” he says of Brian De Palma’s Vietnam war movie. “It never got a fair shake.” Meanwhile, the success of some he remains baffled by. “There is a cult of Teen Wolf out there. That needs to be checked,” he jokes. “It needs to be monitored.”
Hey, I loved Teen Wolf as a kid! It’s no Back to the Future, but it’s a fun one. Maybe Fox should re-watch that one too.