Christopher Lloyd Recalls ‘Selfish’ Reaction When Michael J. Fox Replaced Original Star of ‘Back to the Future’

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 08: Actors Christopher Lloyd (L) and Michael J. Fox attend a "Back To The Future Reunion" at New York Comic Con on October 08, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images)

For Michael J. Fox, his signature role will always be Marty McFly, time-traveling protagonist of “Back to the Future” and its sequels.

Even the film’s biggest fans, however, may not be aware that he wasn’t the first choice for the role; in fact, actor Eric Stoltz had already been cast, and the film was six weeks into production before the filmmakers concluded he was wrong for the part. Stoltz was fired from the project, with Fox brought in as a last-minute replacement.

He Wasn’t Pleased — At First

In the latest edition of Interview Magazine, Christopher Lloyd is interviewed by his former co-star while promoting Lloyd’s upcoming memoir, “In My Own Time.”

As Lloyd tells Fox, he was initially not thrilled to learn he’d suddenly be acting opposite someone else after already working with Stoltz for all that time.

“I remember the night before the morning of your first day. We’d been working all night for a few days in the shopping mall, so lunch would be at like one o’clock in the morning. We broke for lunch, and we were in the parking lot of the mall, and somebody stood up to say somebody was going to make an announcement after lunch. We had our lunch and then we all gathered around one of the trailers. [Steve] Spielberg, I think, got up and told us that, ‘Tomorrow morning, Michael J. Fox is going to be taking over the role of Marty,’” Lloyd told Fox.

“That was pretty stunning news,” Lloyd added. “Because for me, totally selfishly, I felt I’d given 99 percent every moment they shot for six weeks. I had to put a lot of energy into it, and I was still getting into the groove. My first thought was, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to have to do all that again. How am I going to do it?'”

However, once he began working with Fox, everything clicked and cinematic history was made. “But it all worked out,” Lloyd told Fox. “When you came along, it was a whole different game. Your spontaneity, humor, smartness, and intelligence — it was great.”

‘Some Schmuck from TV’

At the time he was cast in “Back to the Future,” Fox was starring in hit TV sitcom “Family Ties.”

Because the show refused to write out his wildly popular character for the duration of his film shoot, Fox did double duty, working on “Family Ties” during the day and shooting “Back to the Future” at night, grabbing a few hours of sleep wherever he could.

During their Interview conversation, Fox credited Lloyd being open to Fox during an era when movies were loathe to cast TV stars.

“Earlier you were talking about people thinking film and theater were the only valid things, and if you did television you weren’t a real actor — when I first hit the ‘Back to the Future’ set, people said, ‘Who is this guy? Eric Stoltz was a real movie star, and now we got this schmuck from TV,’” Fox recalled.

“You never gave me that attitude because you had a television background too,” Fox said, referencing Lloyd’s role as Reverend Jim on sitcom “Taxi.”

“I thought, of all the people here, the only person I really need to lock in with is Doc. If the Doc-Marty relationship is happening, I’m safe and good to go,” Fox added. “And you were so open to me under hard circumstances. You had to redo your work and find a whole new way to approach the character, but you were so welcoming to me. I don’t know if you ever give yourself credit for what an amazing actor you are. You manage to completely immerse yourself in a role, but never to the detriment of the relationship with the other actors. You don’t think your process is more important than anyone else’s process. You do your process, you let us do ours, and then magic happens.”