Back To The Future’s Original Doc Brown Casting Shows How Close The Movie Came To Disaster

Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown was a pivotal part of Back to the Future’s success, but the central role was originally offered to a star and his lack of experience might have been a disaster for the movie had he accepted. Back to the Future was a huge hit upon the movie’s 1985 release, but the sci-fi adventure comedy had a long, rocky journey to the big screen. Not only was Back to the Future’s original pitch repeatedly rejected since its family-friendly story couldn’t compete with the R-rated comedies of the early ‘80s, but the movie’s casting proved another big roadblock when the project finally got studio backing.

Eric Stoltz was cast as Marty McFly since Michael J. Fox was unavailable, only for the filmmakers to then re-shoot Stoltz’s scenes with Fox when Stolz was later fired. Back to the Future recast Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer twice as the trilogy continued, while the search for Doc Brown’s perfect actor saw the creators consider dozens of people. Astoundingly, director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg even approached a famous star who had barely any experience as an actor. Fortunately, the duo was rebuffed by the inexperienced thespian due to his lack of acting credits.

Back To The Future’s Original Doc Brown Casting Wouldn’t Have Worked

Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh wasn’t an experienced enough actor for the role

Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh told The Wrap that he was approached by Spielberg and Zemeckis after a concert. When the pair told the New Wave musician that they wanted to discuss an upcoming project with him, Mothersbaugh naturally assumed they wanted him to score the movie. Instead, they offered Mothersbaugh the part of Doc Brown, arguing that his stage presence fit the zany mad scientist style that they wanted. While the musician does have the right look for the role, Mothersbaugh himself was the first to note that he had nowhere near enough acting experience to take on the part.

Since Back to the Future’s many timelines turned the standalone movie into a successful trilogy in the years that followed, Mothersbaugh could easily have ended up out of his depth. The musical would have lacked the gravitas that Christopher Lloyd, a professional actor with decades of experience, brought to the role. Mothersbaugh even admitted that he didn’t consider himself an actor at the time and, outside of a handful of cameos in Futurama, Rugrats, The Aqubats!, and Mystery Men, his best-known contributions to television and cinema are still his many famous scores.

Doc Brown Was Back To The Future’s Hardest Role To Get Right

Dozens of actors were considered for Doc Brown before Christopher Lloyd was chosen

Spielberg and Zemeckis took a huge risk by asking a musician moonlighting as an occasional actor to take on the tricky role of Doc Brown. There is a thin line between playing the character as a caring friend and a mad scientist, and Lloyd managed to balance these two diverging personae perfectly. As comedian John Mulaney famously noted, Doc Brown and Marty’s friendship is weird. Casting an actor with limited experience in the part would have made this issue more unavoidably obvious and could have left Back to the Future’s tone feeling odd and uncomfortable.

Even after Mothersbaugh turned down the part, John Lithgow and Jeff Goldblum were both considered and later disregarded as potential Doc Brown candidates, according to Vulture. The search for a perfect actor to play the part eventually led the creators to Lithgow’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension co-star Lloyd, who had been acting since 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His role as the perpetually high Jim Ignatowski in the ‘70s sitcom Taxi made him a good fit for Doc Brown, but few of Lloyd’s earlier roles hinted at the manic energy he soon brought.

Back To The Future Falls Apart Without The Right Doc Brown Actor

The franchise’s story only works with the perfect mad scientist at its center

The fact that over a dozen actors were considered for the role of Back to the Future’s Doc Brown proves just how much the character’s casting shaped the success of the series. While Fox nailed the role of Marty McFly, the suburban teen was always intended to be a self-insert for the movie’s young audience. In contrast, Doc Brown had to be both a wise mentor and a laughably inane crackpot, a balance that even screen veterans could struggle to get right. He could easily have been too bizarre, in which case Doc Brown wouldn’t learn the audience’s sympathy.

Alternatively, he could have been too normal, which would have made his madcap experiments and his friendship with a young teen seem weirder. Doc Brown had to be cartoony enough to feel like a stereotypical over-the-top mad scientist while maintaining a level of relatable humanity. As such, it is understandable that Zemeckis and Spielberg attempted to enlist the famously offbeat Mothersbaugh in their casting search. However, Lloyd’s inimitable performance proves that Back to the Future could easily have been doomed if the original movie went with another Doc Brown, let alone one who wasn’t even a full-time actor.

Sources: The Wrap, Vulture