(Left to right) Back to the Future writer Bob Gale with actors Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox at Fan Expo for a panel discussion of the original film’s 40th anniversary in Toronto, on August 22.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
Kim Flores, 41, wearing a puffy red vest, Nike sneakers and ’80s era denim-on-denim, became teary-eyed when Michael J. Fox took the stage alongside his Back to the Future co-stars at the 40th anniversary celebration of the film at Toronto’s FanExpo.
“It’s like a dream come true,” she said, joining 2,500 people in attendance Friday at the sold-out Metro Toronto Convention Centre in giving the 64-year-old Canadian actor publicly battling Parkinson’s disease a standing ovation.
“What he’s gone through and continues to go through is an inspiration, and I’m inspired by how he continues to live his life. He’s still here and visibly struggles, but his smile is still so big.”
Appearing alongside actors Christopher Lloyd and Mary Steenburgen, and series screenwriter Bob Gale, Fox was generous and alert, applauding his colleagues’ laugh lines and bantering with the crowd.
Although he needed help walking onto and off the stage, he controlled the hour-long panel discussion with wit, rascally charm and effortless grace.
“We were all just obsessed with the film while we were making it and I’m not bragging to say that I’m proud I was there,” Fox told the crowd.
“It really happened. We were all part of making one of the greatest movies of all time.”
Fox, who played Marty McFly in Back to the Future, at a panel discussion for the film’s 40th anniversary in Toronto on August 22.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
In the funny trilogy of genre-bending science fiction movies, Fox plays Marty McFly, a high school student who winds up, thanks to Lloyd’s character Doc, travelling through time and unwittingly setting off a chain of events in which his parents don’t meet and rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t happen.
The first picture, which shot Marty into 1955 at 88-miles-per-hour in a plutonium-fueled DeLorean, became the highest-grossing film of 1985.
Claudia Wells, who played Fox’s love interest, says the chemistry the cast felt for one another translated to the screen.
“Michael would put his hand in the back pocket of my blue jeans as my boyfriend, which felt super cool, and in the scene where Principal Strickland gets in his face and calls him a slacker, I wasn’t in the shot, but I stood next to him and, as his girlfriend, squeezed his hand,” said Wells, who attended the event from her home in Los Angeles.
She says her co-star today matches with how he showed up in their 20s.
“Acting opposite Michael was easy because I responded to his positivity and kindness — forget about that he’s absolutely strikingly good-looking and funny,” she said.
“I think seeing him now responding to his illness with bravery is absolutely fitting with his character. He could live on his laurels and not be the public face of Parkinson’s. Instead, his positivity will very likely find a cure to his disease.”
The Michael J. Fox Foundation has raised more than $2-billion for Parkinson’s research since its founding in 2000. The progressive neurodegenerative disorder mainly affects the central nervous system, causing slurred speech, memory loss and tremors. It affects more than 10 million people worldwide.
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Tyler Switala, 26, dressed in a reverential Marty McFly costume and visiting Canada for the first time from New Jersey to see the stars of his favourite film, said the actor is a touchstone for how he lives.
“Never once has Michael claimed to be a victim,” said Switala, who ranks Back to the Future alongside Gremlins and Ghostbusters as his top three favourite films of all time.
“You can see what he goes through because the results of his Parkinson’s are so visible, but somehow his smile cuts through even that. He lives life to its fullest and is insanely funny, which makes him an inspiration to me and I’d think nearly everyone here.”
Ashley Lomas and Veronique Roy, a married couple from Ottawa, wore Back to the Future T-shirts as they had Fox sign their memorabilia hoverboards. Both said the Edmonton-born actor appears at events like FanExpo because he truly values his fans.
Fans dressed as Marty McFly (left) and Doc Brown at the film’s 40th anniversary discussion panel at Toronto’s Fan Expo on August 22.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
“You can see that he’s struggling, but he puts his whole heart into these appearances, and you can tell he appreciates what he’s done and how well he’s still received,” said Lomas, adding that when he received his autograph from his favourite actor, he took the time to thank him for his work.
“I told him that he was just a big part of some of my favourite childhood memories and that today he helps me put my own life into perspective and that he continues to be an inspiration.”
The roundtable featured Fox speaking candidly and without notes, making jokes about Tesla, our current cellphone obsession, the omnipresence of Google and about how he was a deadbeat in high school.
“I was a slacker and dropped out,” he said, generating a round of applause as did nearly each one of his off-the-cuff comments, “but eventually I got my high school degree at 34 because my son told me to.”
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Lucas Hallauer, who plays Marty in Back to the Future: The Musical, opened the roundtable with a performance of the film’s breakout single, The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News. Hallauer says the actor’s likeability is tied to his honesty and boyish charm.
“Playing this teenager stuck where he is and wanting to do big things is super-relatable and his mannerisms in the film are so specific and disarming,” said Hallauer.
“I think the fact that Michael is using his platform for Parkinson’s research, something obviously so close to his heart, and raising so much money and has been willing to go out in front of the public and be vulnerable is something of beauty,” Hallauer says. “His bravery will help a lot of people.”
Lucas Hallauer, who plays Marty McFly in Mirvish’s Back to the Future: The Musical, performs The Power of Love to the Fan Expo crowd in Toronto on Friday.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
Bravery, or gumption, was certainly something the actor had to rely upon during the filming of Back to the Future, which he did while simultaneously playing Alex P. Keaton on the hit sitcom Family Ties.
That era will be the subject of a book he has coming out in October, called Future Boy.
“I was 23 years old and out of my mind,” he told the audience with a smile, mentioning that he’d sometimes get the characters confused and that he snuck in cat naps wherever he could.
He said, professionally, it was the best time of his life.
“I really appreciate everything Back to the Future has given me,” he said. “It’s given me a really great life.”