Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reunited years later during a Back to the Future panel at New York Comic Con on Saturday. And when the two former colleagues met on stage, they greeted each other with a big hug, which received thunderous applause from fans.
Among other things, the actors discussed Fox’s casting in the 1985 film Back to the Future, which launched his career. As connoisseurs know, director Robert Zemeckis originally cast Eric Stoltz as the time-traveling teenager Marty McFly. And it was only after weeks of filming that Zemeckis and the other producers decided to replace Stoltz with Fox.
“We got a call at one in the morning after six weeks of filming that the actor who plays Marty wouldn’t be playing him and that we would start filming with Michael tomorrow.” Lloyd told the New York panel, according to Syfy.com, adding: “I felt like I was just past the first six weeks and now I’m going to have to do it all over again ?!” But Lloyd soon realized: “The chemistry between us worked from the first scene, it was alive and it stayed that way for all three films. By the way, he hasn’t gone away until today “, said he worked with Fox.
83-year-old Lloyd has continued acting for the past several years and has recently starred in the NCIS series, The Mandalorian and The Conners. However, 61-year-old Fox, who has starred in The Good Wife and The President since 2010, respectively, announced in his 2020 memoir No Time Like the Future that he has retired from acting due to the progression of Parkinson’s disease.
Today, however, Fox says he would not change his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. “The best thing that ever happened to me was this thing,” he told his fans. “Parkinson’s is a gift. I told people it was a gift and they said, “You’re crazy.” I say, ‘Yes, but it’s a gift and I wouldn’t change it for the world … It’s not about what I have now, it’s about what I’ve been given.’
Sources: TMZ, SyFy, TVline, The Hollywood Reporter
