Christopher Lloyd Says He Worried About Michael J. Fox Replacing Eric Stoltz on 'Back to the Future'

It’s hard to believe anyone other than Michael J. Fox could’ve played Marty McFly in Back to the Future and now Christopher Lloyd is opening up about what lead to his casting!

In an interview with GQ, Christopher Lloyd discussed Eric Stoltz‘s being cast as Marty McFly originally, before Michael eventually took over the role.

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As Back to the Future fans know, Eric was let go after six weeks of production because filmmakers felt he wasn’t right for the role. Michael was subsequently cast, with a deal in place that stipulated he could work on the movie at night and film Family Ties during the day.

“Stoltz is a wonderful actor. I had no idea the change was coming,” Christopher explained. “One night we were shooting the mall beginning sequence, and we were asked to come to one of the trailers at one o’clock in the morning. [Steven] Spielberg was there and he made the announcement of the change.”

He said he was worried about finding a groove with the new actor, saying, “My biggest fear, because I was really working to get Doc right, I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can get it up to do that again. So I was worried about it. But, it all worked out.”

“They just decided that they needed somebody with a comic flair,” he continued. “Michael, we had a chemistry which lasted the whole time.”

He said of the film’s legacy, “Kids who saw it when the film first came out, grew up and had kids who they began their lives with it. So many people have come up to me to say how I’ve made their childhood, or the film made their childhood, or they became engineers or scientists or surgeons or whatever from the effect of the film on them. Nothing else I’ve done has had that kind of impact.”

Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd had a Back to the Future reunion a couple years ago. Check it out!