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Associated Press

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 has been 40 years since Back to the Future debuted in cinemas, but neither time nor Parkinson’s disease has done much – regardless of what he says – to diminish Fox’s boyish good nature.
For Fox, travelling through time with Back to the Future has been part of life. It is 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 via 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 American cinemas. The anniversary celebration also includes a new 4K trilogy gift set that comes complete with an Outatime number plate.
Fox has just released Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum, a book he wrote 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 at the North American box office for 11 of its first 12 weeks.
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.
But what most definitely has not aged is Fox’s live-wire performance in the original as Marty McFly, 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 from 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 the NBC sitcom 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.
“No time for neurosis. No time for self-indulgent b******t,” 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-travelling 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.
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-US president Joe Biden. The Michael J. Fox Foundation, founded in 2000, is the world’s largest non-profit 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 will make a guest appearance on the coming 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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American cinema

As Back to the Future turns 40, Michael J. Fox on the time-travel sci-fi’s enduring appeal

Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd in a still from Back to the Future (1985). Fox reflects on the landmark sci-fi film as it turns 40 years old. Photo: Universal Pictures via AP

Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry at an event in New York to promote Fox’s new book. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Michael J. Fox in a still from Back to the Future. Photo: Facebook/Do You Remember?

Christopher Lloyd, Michael J. Fox and Lea Thompson at the Back to the Future 25th anniversary reunion in New York in 2010. Photo: AP

How Netflix’s Ballad of a Small Player with Colin Farrell was inspired by Macau, Hong Kong

Colin Farrell in a still from Ballad of a Small Player. In Netflix’s new film, the actor stars opposite Tilda Swinton as an unhinged gambler running through the casinos of Macau, and occasionally escaping to Hong Kong. Photo: Netflix

Ballad of a Small Player actors (from left) Fala Chen, Colin Farrell and director Edward Berger at a special screening of the film at The Egyptian Theatre Hollywood, on October 14, 2025. Photo: AP

Colin Farrell in a still from Ballad of a Small Player. Photo: Netflix

Tilda Swinton in a still from Ballad of a Small Player. Photo: Netflix

Edward Berger and Fala Chen on the set of Ballad of a Small Player. Photo: Netflix

Another World movie review: macabre human fable is a new milestone for Hong Kong animation

Yuri (left, voiced by Christy Choi Hiu-tung) and Gudo (Chung Suet-ying) in a still from Another World (category IIA, Cantonese). Directed by Tommy Ng.

Princess Goran (front, voiced by Yeung Nga-man) in a still from Another World.

A still from Another World.

How Sammo Hung came to direct his first film – then complete Bruce Lee’s Game of Death

Sammo Hung in a still from The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977), which was also his directorial debut. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Sammo Hung (left) and Chan Sing in a still from The Iron-Fisted Monk. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Sammo Hung in a still from The Iron-Fisted Monk. Photo: Eureka Entertainment

Sammo Hung (left) and Bruce Lee in a still from Enter the Dragon (1973). Photo: Warner Bros

Sammo Hung (right) in a still from Enter the Fat Dragon (1978).

Cecilia Cheung: Hong Kong actress, sex scandal victim and Chinese social media star

Cecilia Cheung at the 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards in 2004. The actress’ personal life garnered a lot of attention in the 2000s, with tabloids covering scandals and her high-profile romantic life. Photo: SCMP

Cheung in 1999. Photo: Oliver Tsang

Cheung speaks after receiving the award for best new performer, as veteran actors Liza Wang and Danny Lee look on, at the 19th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2000. Photo: Martin Chan

Cheung and Nicholas Tse in 2001. Photo: Reuters

Cheung in a still from Lost in Time (2003), for which she won best actress at the 23rd Hong Kong Film Awards. Photo: China Star Entertainment Group

Cheung and Tse at the 30th Hong Kong Film Awards in 2011, the year they filed for divorce. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Cheung and Stephen Chow in a still from King of Comedy (1999). Her feature-film debut remains one of her most memorable roles. Photo: The Star Overseas

Cheung and her three sons. Photo: Weibo

Cheung in a photo she posted on her Weibo account in 2023. Photo: Weibo

Lifestyle

Entertainment

Culture

Film & TV

Fox talks about the DeLorean, being suddenly thrown into the lead role of the 1985 film, and how it has become ‘more accessible’ with age


Fox talks about the DeLorean, being suddenly thrown into the lead role of the 1985 film, and how it has become ‘more accessible’ with age.


As Back to the Future turns 40, Michael J. Fox on the time-travel sci-fi’s enduring appeal

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Fox talks about the DeLorean, being suddenly thrown into the lead role of the 1985 film, and how it has become ‘more accessible’ with age

Fox talks about the DeLorean, being suddenly thrown into the lead role of the 1985 film, and how it has become ‘more accessible’ with age