Michael J. Fox and "Future Boy" co-author Nelle Fortenberry celebrate the release of their book.
On October 14, readers went back to the future as Michael J. Fox released Future Boy, a new memoir that revisits an extraordinary time in Michael’s iconic career when he played Marty McFly at night, Alex P. Keaton during the day and found little time in between to be just Michael.
To get the full scoop on the book, we spoke with Future Boy co-author Nelle Fortenberry, who is also a founding Board member of The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF). Nelle has worked with our intrepid founder as his producing partner for more than three decades, including as executive producer on the Emmy-winning documentary, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. And she has also written and directed multiple Webby Award-winning films about the Foundation’s work.
MJFF: Take us back to when and where you first met Michael. What was it like?
Nelle: In 1996 I had just finished producing the “The Dana Carvey Show.” I got a call from Michael’s team — they were looking for someone to run his production company. I said no because I was on the cusp of doing some really great projects. But then I was encouraged to just meet with Michael. And I thought, Yeah, Am I out of my mind? Of course, I’ll meet with Michael J. Fox.
I met Michael on a spring afternoon on the rooftop of a hotel. He got there first, and everyone was staring at him. Because of course, he’s Michael J. Fox. I went to say hello, and he thought I was a fan. (We laugh about that now!) We spent an hour and a half talking. We had a lot in common — we were the same age. We had both come to Hollywood at about the same time. We both came from very humble backgrounds — me from Nebraska, he from Burnaby, Canada. And we both have the same sense of humor. I remember thinking, Yeah, I have to take this job.
MJFF: “Future Boy” is Michael’s fifth book. What inspired him to write it, and why now?
Nelle: When we worked on Still by Davis Guggenheim, Davis was able to get at some corners of Michael’s life that no one had peeked into before. He asked Michael about doing double-duty roles. Because in today's world, that would never happen — they would never allow the star of a television show to shoot a movie at night. It's too risky for both projects. So, the fact that it happened is somewhat of a miracle. And then for both projects to be huge hits was incredible. There was no greater star in 1985 than Michael J. Fox.
Michael had been thinking about how that story fascinated people. They asked him about it a lot. And then it just made sense as Back to the Future’s 40th anniversary approached. It made him nostalgic.
It was only a year ago that Michael asked me what I thought about writing a book about making Back to the Future. I told him, Duh, I’m interested in that. I would read that book. So, we pitched it that day to his literary agent, and she sold it that afternoon. We started writing two days later. It all happened so fast.
We had only nine months to write this book. So, very early on he asked me if I would co-write it with him. I was so honored, and it was so much fun to be a partner with him on this.
MJFF: What was the writing process like? How did you and Michael work together?
Nelle: We spent (almost) every day together. We watched a lot of “making of” videos about the movie and old interviews to get an idea of what stories had already been told. We wanted there to be things in this book that no one had ever heard before. We laid out who we wanted to talk to, the stories we wanted to tell. I researched the nine episodes of Family Ties from that year, what they were called, what they were about. That way we had a framework of the exact episodes he shot at that time. And then I had the original call sheets from Back to the Future, which tell you what they shot that day, what time they started, etc. I worked a lot with Bob Gale, who co-wrote the movie and produced it. So, I would prompt Michael with things like, “Tell me about your final day on the movie,” or “The first day you met Leah Thompson.” And we would look at the call sheets to recall his memory.
But what I also loved, and we wrote about this in the book, is that we found some behind-the-scenes footage of Michael. Because Michael said, "I'd love to see if I'm tired. I'd like to see any images of me just being out of it." After much searching, we found some photos of him sleeping on the set. Literally, there's one of him sleeping standing up. It’s all in the book!
MJFF: You’ve known Michael for decades, but did you learn anything new or surprising about that time in his life?
Nelle: I knew the basic Back to the Future story that Michael had replaced another actor, but I didn't realize that he had no rehearsal. Once Michael was locked in for the film, he had his first meeting 36 hours later. It happened very quickly, and then he started shooting the following Monday. There was no discussion about who Marty McFly was. They hired Michael on the basis of his work on Family Ties, but he's not going to play Marty the way he plays Alex P. Keaton.
Michael chose specific vocal inflections — the way that Marty is the cool kid who doesn't care what you think. He's in trouble at school and he's not good with authority. The way that Michael handed himself through all that was him. And I found that fascinating. There was no sit-down to run through these scenes. They hired him. And he showed up after a full day of working on Family Ties. And in an instant, he was Marty. That's crazy, and just shows how good he is.
MJFF: Michael said that he feels this book is more perspective than memoir. The book seems to cover the formation of Michael’s ethos — his optimism and tenacity. Was that a goal?
Nelle: It wasn't really a goal per se. One thing that was very purposeful was that Michael didn't want this book to be about Parkinson's. Simply because he hadn’t been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1985. He wanted this book to be a pure adrenaline rush, about the joy of this remarkable time in his life. Over time, it also became a behind-the-scenes of the difference between making a TV show and filming a movie and how an actor prepares for a role.
For our research we also went back and talked to the first assistant director, and the producers, and the crew. This isn’t in the book, but they all told stories about the first night Michael came on. He went around and introduced himself to the grips and the cameraman, like, "Hi, I'm Mike." And of course they're all like, "We know who you are. Yes, hello." But he was the new guy there, and he had enough perspective to understand, I'm the lucky one. You're doing this for me. I'm so excited to be here. Everyone spoke about his kindness, the fact that he never complained, the fact that he didn't have that Hollywood star mentality.
MJFF: As a founding Board member, you’ve had a front row seat to the Foundation's progress and impact. If you could peer into the future for Parkinson's research, what do you see?
Nelle: I was talking about this with Michael recently. He’s not one to celebrate anniversaries with the Foundation. For him, you celebrate when you're done, when you're out of business. With that said, we do have the perspective of what we've accomplished in 25 years. The impact we've had on science, but also for individual Parkinson's patients, their families, caregivers.
When he started the Foundation in 2000, Michael thought we'd be out of business in a decade because the research was promising at that time. And people kept saying to him, "We just need more money to get poured into that research." And he thought, "Well, I can do that. I can go raise that money." And he did. But then, of course, you realize that curing a disease is not something that you accomplish in a matter of a few years.
But what we’ve learned is that patients who are diagnosed today have a better outlook and certainly navigate the disease better with the treatments that are currently available to them. That's not all because of us — but certainly we've incentivized the field to make patients' lives better while waiting for the ultimate cure.
We feel we're really on the cusp of huge breakthroughs now, that it's taken us 25 years to get to this point where we find science today. So we think there's even more exciting things ahead, and we actually do feel confident that a cure is on the horizon.