Fox tells "" that after years toiling in the dregs of the fame factory, he was “ready for my break.”

Michael J. Fox opens up about being ‘treated like s---’ before Back to the Future success

Fox tells "" that after years toiling in the dregs of the fame factory, he was "ready for my break."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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November 10, 2025 10:36 p.m. ET

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Lea Thompson and Michael J. Fox in 'Back to the Future'. Credit: Amblin Entertainment/Universal Pictures/Kobal/Shutterstock

Nobody puts Michael J. Fox in the corner — at least after *Back to the Future*.

By the time the time-hopping sci-fi comedy came around in 1985, Fox had already been working steadily as an actor for years. He'd already put in three years on one of his signature roles, the smart-alecky conservative Alex P. Keaton in *Family Ties*, but *Back to the Future *changed everything. The better for it, because before director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg came calling, Fox was "treated like s---," he says.

Fox was "not aware" of all the "issues" plaguing the film during production, namely the stir caused by his replacing original star Eric Stoltz six weeks into production, he tells * *on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of *Back to the Future*, as well as the release of his new memoir, *Future Boy*, chronicling the making of the fabled film.

"I was not aware of what anyone thought about it. I was an actor, I was used to being treated like s---, being called short, being called no good. That's just what we go through," he reflects.

Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton on 'Family Ties'.

Gary Null/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty

"You bring yourself into the situation where all your bets are on the table, and you just play your hand," Fox reasons. "I was five years into it, I had a bit of success with *Family Ties*, but I had two years of just dumpster diving and insulting conditions. I was ready for my break."

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.*******Though Fox's mother Phyllis was an actress, the actor landed in Hollywood from far-flung Edmonton, Canada, with scant industry connections and nary a clue how to crack in. He'd starred in 12 episodes of the Canadian sitcom *Leo and Me*, however, which primed him to land on his feet when cast in a plum role on *Family Ties*.

Everything crystallized in 1984, when Fox landed the lead role in the supernatural coming-of-age farce *Teen Wolf*, renewed his contract for season 3 of *Family Ties*, and got the call to meet with Zemeckis and Spielberg about a little film already a month and a half into production.

"After years of struggling as an actor, success seemed to have dropped into my lap all at once. What a whirlwind," he wrote in *Future Boy.***

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But it wasn't easy, especially struggling to get his sea legs in the unfamiliar waters of feature film production with the reputation of being a TV star and *only *a TV star.

"I was pounding through and doing the best I could," Fox tells EW. "You know when [Lea Thompson] found out I was a TV actor — back in the '80s, that was a different thing. You couldn't do both. There was a real Maginot Line. But I just did my thing, and she grew to really be complimentary about it."****

Timothy Van Patten, Keith Knight, Michael J. Fox, Lisa Langlois, Erin Noble, and Stefan Arngrim in 'Class of 1984'.

United Film distribution/courtesy Everett

Five years after *Back to the Future *won glowing acclaim and box office dominance upon its release, Fox would face down his greatest struggle yet: detecting the early signs of what would come to be a life-altering Parkinson's diagnosis.

In 2002, the actor reflected back to 1990, when on the set of *Doc Hollywood,* he noticed his pinky finger shaking for no apparent reason: "When the pinky started to go, I didn't know what it was."

Flash forward to 2023, when Fox said of his condition, "I'm not gonna lie. It's gettin' hard, it's gettin' harder. It's gettin' tougher. Every day it's tougher."

But he remains resilient, telling EW in 2023, "I can be optimistic as long as I'm grateful... and I can be grateful if I really think about it."

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Movies”