What Michael J. Fox's Relationship With Back To The Future Costar Lea Thompson Is Really Like

It's been a long time since the "Back to the Future" trilogy first hit the silver screen. So long, in fact, that, at the time of writing, the franchise's furthest glimpse into the future would now actually be set a decade in our past. What's more, franchise lead and former teen idol Michael J. Fox is now a man with four adult children, including a son who grew up to look just like him. And that's not even taking into account Fox's harrowing health journey, which has seen him become one of the leading voices in the fight against Parkinson's disease in the years since Marty McFly first hopped into Doc Brown's DeLorean. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Fox still likes to make time for his former "Back to the Future" co-stars, making public appearances with the likes of Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson. But while the two are good friends today, what you may not know is that Fox and Thompson, in particular, had a bit of an icy relationship at first.

Though there tends to be a lot more crossover these days, back in the '80s, film and television were like two different worlds for actors. Prior to "Back to the Future," Thompson had already appeared in films like "All the Right Moves" and "Red Dawn," whereas Fox's big claim to fame was the TV sitcom "Family Ties." So, it seems like there was definitely some elitism at play, especially after Fox was hired to replace Thompson's friend Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. "She was prepared not to give me a bit of slack," Fox shared during an October 2025 appearance on "The View." Funny enough, though, it was that sitcom experience that helped him break the ice.

During his appearance on "The View," Michael J. Fox opened up a bit more about "Back to the Future" co-star Lea Thompson's original perspective on him, given that he had come from the world of television. "She tells the story about how when I was brought in, she thought, 'This guy's a TV actor.' She felt pretty good about her film career, she admittedly felt a little snobby about working with someone from the small screen. 'Who is this guy coming in replacing my friend?' She knew Eric [Stoltz] really well," Fox recalled. But while he lacked Thomson's big-screen experience, the sitcom world had taught him a thing or two about punching things up on the fly.

At a speaking event in New York City, also in October 2025, Fox explained how he got Thompson to change her mind about him. "The way, to me, to a woman's heart ... was through a joke. So I wrote a joke for her," he said (via People). Remember the scene in "Back to the Future" where Fox's Marty McFly asks Thompson's Lorraine Baines (Marty's future mother) where his pants are, and she replies, "Over there, on my hope chest"? Well, the line was originally just supposed to be, "Over there," but Fox pitched the change to Robert Zemeckis — and Thompson loved it. "That's my world, a world where we pitch jokes all the time," Fox said, adding, "She did it so good. ... It was dynamite, and I knew I was in." Despite Thompson's original reservations about Fox, the bond the two formed that day endured through the decades. In the summer of 2025, shortly before the aforementioned interviews, the two were even pictured together in honor of Thompson's 64th birthday (via Instagram).