Michael J. Foxgot candid about his 1985 film, Teen Wolf.
Entertainment Weekly reported that Fox suggested he wasn’t overly impressed with the movie, wherein he starred as Scott Howard, a high school basketball player who happens to turn into a werewolf, in his most recent memoir, Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum.
In Chapter 2 of Future Boy, Fox noted that he starred as Alex Keaton in the beloved NBC sitcom, Family Ties, which had a seven-season run until 1989. He explained that the show was put on hiatus in 1984 because his on-screen mother, Meredith Baxter, was pregnant with twins and “was prescribed mandatory bed rest.” Fox said his “agent, Bob Gersh, seized the moment” while he had some time off from Family Ties “and sent [him] the script for a quick, low-budget movie called Teen Wolf.”
“They were ready to start filming, and the five-week shoot could easily slide into the production hiatus at Family Ties. This would be my first leading role in a movie, albeit a hackneyed one that required me to wear twenty-five pounds of yak hair. Still I signed on,” wrote Fox in Future Boy, which was released on October 14.
He clarified that he’s still not sure why he decided to take on the role of Scott. However, he theorized that late actor Michael Landon’s role in the 1957 science fiction film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, inspired him to do so. In the movie, Landon played the titular teenage werewolf named Tony Rivers, per IMDb.
“Looking back, I’m not sure why I accepted the role. Maybe it was because the wolf thing had worked for Michael Landon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf? Or did I take it impulsively because I thought I wouldn’t have another shot at the lead in a movie?” continued Fox.
Michael J. Fox Filmed ‘Teen Wolf’ Before Being Cast in ‘Back to the Future’
Fox spoke about filming Teen Wolf during his hiatus from Family Ties in a 2001 interview with EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG. He said that while he had never thought “about having a film career,” he accepted the role of Scott in Teen Wolf.
“I thought well that’s funny. I can do that in four weeks. And it was a nice amount of money. And it kind of made me think of Michael Landon, and I kind of laughed,” said Fox in the interview.
He then noted that Teen Wolf was filming in Pasadena, California, where Back to the Future was about to be in production. Fox suggested he felt a bit envious that Crispin Glover, who appeared in an episode of Family Ties, had gotten the role of George McFly for theSteven Spielberg-produced film.
In addition, he explained that while Spielberg and the film’s director, Bob Zemeckis, always wanted him to play Marty McFly, the creator of Family Ties, Gary David Goldberg, prevented him from doing so.
“Unbeknownst to me, I didn’t even know this, but Gary had already been approached by Steven and Bob Zemeckis to let me do the movie Back to the Future but they wanted to go in October,” recalled Fox in the 2001 interview. “And he couldn’t let me out because it was, at that time, at the beginning of the show. And he hadn’t known that the situation was going to happen with Meredith. So he didn’t know there was going to be that window, so he had said, ‘You know I can’t let him do it.’ And he said ‘You know please don’t tell Michael. Not that I want him to think I did something behind his back, but I really have no other choice. I can’t.’ And I totally accept that and understand.”
The 64-year-old then said that he was eventually offered to star in Back to the Future because the original Marty McFly actor, Eric Stoltz, was deemed unsuited for the role. Fox said while he believes Stoltz is an extremely talented actor, he wasn’t “really ready to embrace” the “goofiness” of Marty and the film.
Fox also said once he got the script for Back to the Future, he agreed to star in the 1985 film. However, he had to continue filming Family Ties while Back to the Future was in production.
“I’d do Family Ties in the daytime. And I’d do Back to the Future at night. And I was working 18, 19, 20 hours [a day],” said Fox.
This story was originally reported by Parade on Oct 17, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.