Back to the Future is undoubtedly one of the defining movie franchises of the ’80s, with serious nostalgic pull for those who grew up watching it.
A huge part of that nostalgia is Michael J Fox‘s endearing performance as Marty McFly, a high schooler who accidentally becomes a time traveller with the aid of an eccentric inventor.
However, Marty was almost played by someone else altogether.
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Back to the Future‘s director, Robert Zemeckis, and producers had always been keen to cast Fox as the lead.
However, there was a clash with the filming schedule for Family Ties, the hit sitcom he was starring on at the time, which meant he couldn’t take the role.
So, it went to Eric Stoltz, who was rising in prominence thanks to his role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Principal photography for the movie began in 1984, and they were more than a month in when the decision was made to replace the actor.
According to reports, Stoltz’s ‘method’ approach saw him interpret the story and the character of Marty far more seriously than Zemeckis had intended, and he wasn’t hitting the comedic notes required for the tone of the movie.
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“Eric had such an intensity … He wasn’t really a comedian, and they needed a comedian,” co-star Lea Thompson, who played Marty’s mother Lorraine Baines-McFly, said in the book We Don’t Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy.
“He’s super-funny in real life, but he didn’t approach his work like that, and they really needed somebody who had those chops.”
Zemeckis, who admits he miscast Stoltz, echoed this in a 2015 interview: ”Eric is a really good actor … [but] his instincts and the type of the comedy [of] the film we were doing weren’t really gelling.”
Fox ultimately became available to take the role, so the decision was made to fire Stoltz.
Zemeckis privately informed the actor, who had spent five weeks shooting, in January 1985.
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The rest of the cast and crew were then formally informed of the decision. Per reports, the news came as a shock to many, but not all.
The situation was uncomfortable for Thompson, who already knew Stoltz from a previous role.
Asked whether she hit it off with Fox right away, she told the Still Here Hollywood podcast this week: “Probably not. I was friends with Eric Stoltz, who had just gotten fired.”
“I remember specifically being really snooty because there was a big division between movie stars and TV stars at that point.”
Jokingly, she added, “I remember being like, ‘He’s just a TV star and I’m a movie star – I was in Jaws 3D.'”
Watch the video above.
In a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Stoltz described the situation as “brutal”.
“Zemeckis told me I was giving a good performance in a film he didn’t want to make … contemplative and thoughtful instead of comedic,” the actor recalled.
“I felt I could have done the part had he pointed me in that direction.”
According to the publication, he was so shaken by being fired ‘without warning’ that he headed ‘headed straight to acting class’.
Regardless of what happened behind the scenes, Back to the Future was a huge hit, spawning two sequels and winning Fox an even larger fanbase.
Being dropped from the role of Marty McFly certainly didn’t dampen Stoltz’s career.
He went on to star in plenty of major projects, including Mask, which earned him a Golden Globe nod, Some Kind of Wonderful – again alongside Lea Thompson – Pulp Fiction, Little Women and Jerry Maguire.
Stoltz also appeared in shows including Chicago Hope, Mad About You, Will and Grace and Grey’s Anatomy.
In more recent years he’s moved to the other side of the camera, too, directing several episodes of Glee and working as executive producer on Madam Secretary.
Evidently, he’s not hung up on the past; Stoltz is quoted in a 2018 US Metro interview saying he didn’t “really have any memories” of his time on the Back to the Future set.
“Gosh, I don’t really ever look back on it … It was like 30 years ago. I honestly never give it a thought,” he said.
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