40 years later, Michael J. Fox looks back on 'Back to the Future'
[October 29, 2025]
By JAKE COYLE
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael J. Fox has been living with “Back to the Future”
for a long time.
“I’ll be on the street and some kid will go, ‘There’s Marty McFly!’” Fox
says. “No, this is an old man.”
It’s been 40 years since “Back to the Future” debuted in theaters, but
neither time, nor Parkinson’s disease has done much — regardless of what
he says — to diminish Fox’s boyish good nature. For Fox, traveling
through time with “Back to the Future” has been part of life. It’s the
film that strapped a flux capacitor to his career and has, ever since,
stayed in his rear view.
“Sometimes I look at it and think about my family,” Fox, 64, said in a
recent interview by Zoom from his apartment in New York. “I think about
how I have a 37-year-old son who wasn’t born yet. It’s a long time ago.”
On Friday, “Back to the Future” is, again, back in theaters. The
anniversary celebration also includes a new 4K trilogy gift set that
comes complete with an OUTATIME license plate. Fox, himself, has just
released “Future Boy: ‘Back to the Future’ and My Journey Through the
Space-Time Continuum,” a book he penned with Nelle Fortenberry.
While anniversary re-releases are commonplace for cherished classics,
the occasion is a little different for Robert Zemeckis’ sci-fi landmark.
On the one hand, the movie’s turn-back-the-clock nostalgia is indelibly
linked to its 1980s moment. After its release on July 3, 1985, “Back to
the Future” was the No. 1 movie in theaters for 11 of its first 12
weeks. Then-President Ronald Reagan was among its biggest fans.
But what was once so firmly lodged in the space-time continuum has, over
the years, turned curiously timeless. Watch “Back to the Future” now and
you might be astonished at how effects-free most of it is, despite its
director’s predilection for pushing film technology. Instead, “Back to
the Future” conjures its magic with a DeLorean, some Calvin Klein briefs
and its most special effect: Christopher Lloyd’s eyebrows.
“The distance between now and 1985 is greater than the distance between
1985 and 1955,” Fox says. “In a way, that makes it more accessible.
People aren’t locked into their time period. They’re not saying: This is
real, this isn’t real. It’s all fantasy.”
Even more harrowing than pondering the distance from now to 1985 is
recalling the flying-car future of the 1989 sequel. That movie was set
in the faraway time of 2015. Say it with me now: Doc, this is heavy.
‘I got into the time machine’
But what most definitely hasn’t aged is Fox’s live wire performance in
the original. His Marty McFly is like the Everykid ur-text: a seminal,
guitar-playing, big-screen teenager trying to keep his family together.
“I found my voice changing. This kind of squeaky incredulity came out,”
Fox says. “I get into the time machine, the DeLorean. I just felt
comfortable in there. Very different than Alex (P. Keaton). Alex was
harder because he knows everything. Marty knows nothing and knows he
knows nothing. Everything is a new day to him.”
Fox was 24 at the time of the film's making. He was thrown into the role
while in the midst of playing Keaton on “Family Ties.” “Back to the
Future” famously began with Eric Stoltz in the part, but Stoltz was
fired after several weeks of shooting. Fox, stepping right onto the set,
brought a more screwball energy.
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Castmembers Christopher Lloyd, from left, Michael J. Fox and Lea
Thompson appear at the "Back To The Future" 25th anniversary reunion
in New York on Oct. 25, 2010. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, File)
 “No time for neurosis. No time for
self-indulgent bulls---,” Fox says. “I didn’t have time to
investigate what happened with Eric. I had no rehearsal. I had no
pep talk. I just showed up and then I was in a parking lot in the
City of Industry. It’s all lit for days, this parking lot. It’s wet,
with pockets of streaky luminescence. I remember looking at it and
thinking: This must have cost more than the entire budget of ‘Family
Ties.'”
For Fox, Marty’s time-traveling confusion matched the whirlwind he
was experiencing off set. “Sitting around with (executive producer)
Steven Spielberg was not where I thought I’d be,” recalls the
Edmonton, Canada, native.
A ticking clock
Fox had no choice but to take the ball and run — even if he
sometimes found himself mistakenly searching for Marty’s camcorder
on the set of “Family Ties.” Most remarkably, he and Lloyd found
their chemistry on the fly.
“He’s like a father figure and a little brother to me, in a weird
way,” Fox says, chuckling. “I love him a lot. But at that time, I
didn’t know him very well. I got to know him on part three. We
jokingly call that ‘Brokeback to the Future.’”
As time has moved on, “Back to the Future” has meant different
things to Fox at different times. Right now, in his fight for a cure
for Parkinson’s, what resonates is “the whole sense about this clock
that’s ticking,” he says. In January, Fox was awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Joe Biden. The
Michael J. Fox Foundation, founded in 2000, is the world’s largest
nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s research.
“My kids are grown up and they’re doing well and getting married one
by one,” says Fox, who has four children with his wife, Tracy Pollan.
“Exhaustion is my biggest issue. But I feel good. And I love rolling
around in this movie because I know how much it means to people.”
Often, “Back to the Future” recedes in Fox’s busy life. After five
years of acting retirement, he'll make a guest appearance on the
upcoming third season of the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking.” But every
now and then, like Doc emerging out of thin air in the DeLorean,
“Back to the Future” suddenly reappears.
“I tell this one story about one Christmas when we were decorating
the tree, I went to get some popcorn and heard the opening on the
TV,” Fox says, smiling. “I sat down and watched it. An hour later,
my wife said, ‘Where are you?’ I said, ‘I’m watching “Back to the
Future.” And, you know, it’s really good. I’m good in it.’ Watching
it on Christmas Eve, with a bowl of popcorn, I really loved it.”
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