ACTRESS HONORS TIMELESS ‘FUTURE’
Orlando astonished actress Lea Thompson three decades ago.
“I made my very first movie in Orlando. I did ‘Jaws 3-D’ in Orlando,” the actress said of the 1983 movie. “Imagine my surprise when I landed in Orlando and realized I was making a movie about a shark and there was no ocean in sight.”
Thompson returns to Central Florida this weekend for the Florida Film Festival and a screening of “Back to the Future,” the 1985 time-travel fantasy that is her best-known movie. The 26th annual festival, featuring 182 films, starts today and continues through April 30.
In “Back to the Future,” Thompson plays the mother of time-jumping student Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox). “None of us knew it would have the longevity that it has,” she said.
The movie endures because of “a great script,” by Bob Gale and director Robert Zemeckis, that is taught in screenwriting classes, she said.
“The themes are really powerful,” she said. “It also benefits that it was about nostalgia for the ’50s, and now it’s nostalgia for the ’50s and the ’80s.”
Of her own part, she added: “I aged, so people are OK with me aging. It’s a great movie to be known for as an actor.”
Two sequels followed, and Thompson says they’re not as great as the first movie. “I’ve always been the biggest fan of ‘Back to the Future 1,’ like most people, but as a boxed set, they’re pretty great,” she said.
She will take questions from the audience after the Sunday screening at the Enzian theater in Maitland.
Beyond “Back to the Future,” Thompson cites other career favorites. “‘Switched at Birth’ has a lot of young fans who don’t even know I was in ‘Back to the Future,’” she said of the Freeform drama series that just wrapped up after five years.
“Some Kind of Wonderful,” a 1987 romantic drama, is another career highlight for Thompson, 55, for personal reasons.
“I met my husband. I’m still married to him,” she said of Howard Deutch, the film’s director and her husband since 1989. “I had my two beautiful kids. A lot of people love that movie, but it wasn’t considered a hit when it came out.”
Her daughters are actress Zoey Deutch and writer-actress Madelyn Deutch.
These days, Thompson is trying to build a career in directing. She has directed epi-