We said in that piece that we had some sympathy for Stoltz, as it’s easy to look back now and say that he wasn’t working in the role, given just how familiar many of us have become with Marty McFly in the guise of Michael J Fox. Furthermore, it’s hard to blame an actor for basically being miscast. “You know, it was twenty-something years ago and I rarely look back, if at all, but in retrospect, I think just getting through that difficult period helped me realise how freeing it really was,” he told the site. “I went back to acting school, I moved to Europe, I did some plays in New York and I actually invested in [pause] myself in a way that was much healthier for me. If I had become a massive star, I don’t know if I wouldn’t have gone into therapy. On the other hand, I would’ve been exceedingly rich, which would’ve been wonderful! [Laughs]” He also refused to call the filmmakers anything other than “nice people”, and admitted that nobody thought it would be a hit in quite the way that it was.
