If there was one movie that changed Michael J. Fox's life as an actor, it was Back to the Future.
During the October 19 episode of Sunday Sitdown, Fox recalled how he landed the role of Marty McFly in the 1985 film. He said he was on the set of the Emmy Award-winning series “Family Ties” when the show's creator, Gary David Goldberg, called him into his office.
At that time, Fox was 23 years old.
“I had just done Teen Wolf and I thought maybe he saw Teen Wolf and fired me,” Fox said with a laugh.
“But I walked into the office and he had this envelope. He said, “I didn't know how to tell you this, but Bob Zemeckis gave it to me a few months ago and said they have a movie they want you to be in,” Fox continued. “He said, 'If you want to do it, we'll make it work.' And I took the envelope and said, “I like this.”
Foxx signed on for one of the most important roles of his life – and didn't even read the script in advance.
Although it was a risky gamble, it paid off. He says his life changed dramatically after he starred in Back to the Future.
“It makes a huge difference,” he said. “And from my family’s point of view, they were so amazing because they didn’t have any mention of it.”
Fox recalled that moment in his new memoir, Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum.
In the book, he recalls the Christmas he spent with his family in Canada in 1984, the year before the film's release. He described this holiday as his “last contact with the old world.”
“When I won my first Emmy, I brought it home to Canada and we put it on the table. And we all sit, play board games, drink and all that, go to visit. And I went to bed, and my Emmy was on this table,” he told Willie. “I woke up the next morning. My Emmy was there with my dad's bowling trophy, my brother's boxing trophy, my sister's figure skating trophy, and they were all around. I said, “This is great.”
Thanks to his family, Fox says, he will “never get out of control.”
“They’ll hold me back,” he laughed.
