Back To The Future Ruined These Actors' Careers
Back to the Future is one of the most iconic movies of all time. It spawned a highly successful trilogy that a lot of people include in their top ten best films of all time. Well, if we're being totally honest, nobody ever ranks Part III up there, because seriously, what was that? But the original and Part II not only still hold up to this day, but also skyrocketed Michael J. Fox into superstardom. While that was great for him, the rest of the cast was left looking for their ticket to the big show, and unfortunately, most of them are still looking. Here's a list of actors who probably still shudder at the sight of a DeLorean.
Christopher Lloyd
Aside from Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd is probably the best known actor from the Back to the Future series. His comedically perfect portrayal of the crackpot scientist who made a time machine out of the crappiest car from the 1980s was so perfectly weird there was no chance he would ever escape it. And that's not to say that he hasn't worked a ton since 1990 when Part III came out. He has. But with credits like Tremors and Piranha 3DD now on his resume, it's clear that he's become a parody of himself, which is sad, because this is a guy with acting chops. According to IMDb, he went method for his role in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by living in a mental institution for weeks and shaping his performance after one of the patients. That kind of dedication to the craft of acting is never supposed to lead you down a path to starring on a show called Stacked, starring Pamela Anderson, is it?
Tom Wilson
When you play a character called Biff, who is the very personification of what it means to be a jerk, there's a solid chance that might be a role that's tough to escape. When you do it in three movies that together gross over $400 million? Forget it, man, you're Biff. But Wilson took this in stride, dove into voice acting, and still took bit parts in TV and movies where audiences no doubt went, "Hey, isn't that Biff?" everytime he walked into a scene. He's also a stand-up comic who has famously performed a song about being asked repeatedly about Back to the Future. And according to Cracked, he once carried a handout for people that was essentially a FAQ sheet with answers on it like "The hoverboards didn't really fly, we were hanging by wires from a crane." That's a hilarious, yet sad resignation to the fact that you're going to be talking about one thing you did in your life for the rest of your life, but it could have been worse. He could have been cast in the lead only to be cut a few weeks into filming. Yep, that happened.
Eric Stoltz
Where Christopher Lloyd and Tom Wilson will forever be remembered for their performances, Eric Stoltz has the rare misfortune of being known for a movie from which he got fired. He was replaced by Michael J. Fox after director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale felt "he wasn't bringing the screwball energy the film needed," according to an excerpt that Vulture published from Caseen Green's book, We Don't Need No Roads. Now, the question of a "ruined career" is certainly subjective, but if compared to what Back to the Future did for Michael J. Fox, i.e. turned him into one of the biggest stars of all time, then Stoltz getting the boot was a coffin nail. We're sorry, but a scene in Pulp Fiction doesn't make up for getting shafted out of playing the hero who time travels and saves his family from disappearing from existence.
Crispin Glover
Arguably as quirky and weird as Doc Brown, the character of George McFly will always be known for having been crafted by the oddball that is Crispin Glover. And while it may seem like he returned for Part II, he did not. Instead, the filmmakers put prosthetics and makeup on another actor to make him look like Crispin Glover, which was not only strange, but if you ask Glover, also illegal. So, why did they do that? Because Glover refused to return over what he cited as creative differences, namely the ending of the first film, which he thought "was an implicit statement that money equals happiness," according to Cinema Blend. In fact, Glover is writing a book about the whole ordeal, which details a lawsuit he actually filed against the filmmakers. Regardless of the kind of movie career Glover was aiming for, making his bosses pay him a huge settlement was never a move that would have made him seem like a great future employee. He's mostly done arthouse stuff ever since with the exception of Charlie's Angels, which could hardly be seen as a mainstream comeback.
Jeffrey Weissman
Since Crispin Glover couldn't deal with the amoral ending to a movie in a franchise that featured hoverboards, self-fitting clothing, and oh yeah, time travel, actor Jeffrey Weissman took his place. This means he agreed to wear that nose and hair, hang upside-down, and to imitate Glover's spastic mannerisms to try to fool audiences into believing they were watching the same actor. That's a weird request, but can anyone really blame the guy for jumping at the chance to be included? Absolutely no one expected Back to the Future to be anything but a funny, family sci-fi movie, but it turned into an international phenomenon nonetheless. Of course Weissman was going to do the role. In an interview for Hasslein Blog, Weissman admits there was tension with the cast and crew when he initially showed up since Glover was generally well-liked by everyone except for writer Bob Gale (allegedly). But they did the work and Weissman even continues to be included in the seemingly endless Back to the Future reunion stuff that goes on, despite feeling a bit "like a scab" as he described it. Since his stint as George McFly 2.0, he's done almost nothing but short films and bit TV parts including one role as an uncredited geek on Saved By The Bell, which sadly is one of the roles he cites to Hasslein Blog as his most recognized. We hope hanging upside-down and pretending to be an old man was worth it, because otherwise being known only as "Screech's guru" seems like a high price to pay.