In the run-up to Back to the Future's 30th anniversary on July 3, Digital Spy presents a week of special features celebrating the time-travel classic.
Great Scott! Has it really been 30 years? Back to the Future celebrates a landmark anniversary this week, so to mark the occasion we take a look back at the film to find out what the cast were doing then and where they are now.
We get all misty-eyed and nostalgic about Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and their BTTF cast-mates below!
Michael J Fox
A huge teen idol thanks to his role in sitcom Family Ties, Fox initially wasn't able to play Marty McFly due to a scheduling conflict with his TV show. The part of Marty went to Eric Stoltz, he was fired five weeks into filming, then Fox jumped on board as a last-minute replacement. The schedule was gruelling (10am-6pm on Family Ties, 6.30pm-2.30am on Back to the Future), but BTTF turned Fox into a big screen star.
Notable roles in the BTTF sequels, Teen Wolf, Doc Hollywood and sitcom Spin City followed, but Fox's Parkinson's disease diagnosis in 1991 meant that he shifted his focus from acting to activism and founded The Michael J Fox Foundation. He's continued to act since, guest-starring in The Good Wife, playing himself in Annie and leading his own sitcom The Michael J Fox Show.
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Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd was a beloved character actor prior to playing Doc Brown thanks to roles in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Taxi and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, but Back to the Future made him an icon for a generation of filmgoers.
Lloyd reunited with BTTF director Robert Zemeckis to play Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and also played Fester in The Addams Family films. Lloyd has continued to play Doc across various different platforms: BTTF video games, the live-action interstitials for the animated series, theme parks rides and even last year's comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West.
Lea Thompson
A fast-rising star in the early '80s, Lea Thompson appeared in Jaws 3D, All the Right Moves and Red Dawn before landing the role of Lorraine Baines/McFly in Back to the Future. After getting the hots for her future son, she embarked on another ill-advised romance in Howard the Duck (1986) and followed up with a part in the John Hughes-scripted Some Kind of Wonderful.
Her biggest role post-BTTF was in sitcom Caroline in the City, which ran from 1995-2000 on NBC. More recently Thompson has been a regular on long-running show Switched at Birth on ABC Family.
Crispin Glover
Glover got his big break in Back to the Future, earning a Saturn Award nomination as Marty's nervous, neurotic father George McFly. Superb in the role, Glover didn't return for the sequels due to a creative dispute and had to be replaced by Jeffrey Weissman.
He later put those problems aside to reunite with BTTF director Zemeckis on Beowulf, and has also featured in Charlie's Angels, Alice in Wonderland and Hot Tub Time Machine. Outside of acting, Glover writes, directs and makes for a somewhat eccentric chatshow guest.
Thomas F Wilson
Biff Tannen, the bully who terrorised generations of McFlys before getting his comeuppance (usually involving manure) was brilliantly played by Thomas F Wilson. Back to the Future was Wilson's first major movie role, and in the years after the trilogy wrapped up he featured in everything from Freaks and Geeks to The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and The Heat.
Wilson is also a prominent podcaster and comedian, with his stand-up sets featuring 'Biff's Question Song' - a ditty that seeks to answer every single question he gets asked about Back to the Future.
Claudia Wells
A familiar face on TV in the early '80s, Wells made her movie debut in Back to the Future as Marty's girlfriend Jennifer Parker. She left acting in 1986 (following a role in the Fast Times TV series) when her mother was diagnosed with cancer.
Family became Wells's priority and Elisabeth Shue took over the Jennifer role in the Back to the Future sequels. After a 20-year absence from the big screen, she returned with 2008's Still Waters Burn and reprised her role as Jennifer in Telltale's BTTF video game in 2011. Wells also owns and manages a successful men's clothing store in California called Armani Wells.
Billy Zane
Bonus Billy Zane addition!
Though he wasn't one of Back to the Future's leads, Zane got his big break playing one of Biff's goons in the 1955 segment of the film. He returned for Back to the Future II just as his career was taking off (thanks in part to his sinister turn in Dead Calm).
He later played a purple-clad superhero in The Phantom, while his turn as snivelling posho Cal "I make my own luck" Hockley in Titanic was another memorable role. Next year will see him reprise his role (as himself!) in Ben Stiller's Zoolander 2.
Movies Editor
Simon has worked as a journalist for more than a decade, writing on staff and freelance for Hearst, Dennis, Future and Autovia titles before joining Cision in 2022.
