Michael J. Fox was the most popular star on TV—at the height of Family Ties—when he was cast in Back to the Future… which he would film at night after spending all day on the set of his sitcom. This exhausting yet thrilling period of Fox’s life is the subject of his new memoir, Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum, co-written with Nelle Fortenberry. io9 is excited to share an excerpt from the book, which releases today—conveniently just ahead of Back to the Future‘s shined-up return to theaters in honor of its 40th anniversary. My Back to the Future wardrobe came together over that weekend, with final adjustments made right before I started shooting on Tuesday night (a pair of naff suspenders were the last piece added to my ensemble, right before they rushed me onto the set). I loved the tailored 1950s clothes I got to wear. There was a candy quality to the colors and patterns that really appealed to me. One of the cool things about the wardrobe: I wore mostly primary colors in 1985, but when I time-traveled back to the 1950s, my clothes shifted to a pastel palette. My hair also changed for the period scenes—the era required the hair and makeup team to slick back my locks. I smelled like Tenax pomade for months after filming wrapped. Playing Marty McFly coincided with my burgeoning interest in fashion. Three years of a Family Ties salary had allowed me to pay off old debts and build a bank account. For the first time in my life, I had money to spend on my clothes. I especially loved buying flashy shoes. My robust earnings would later go toward a slightly bigger purchase: I bought a house for my parents in Burnaby. Soon after the explosive success of Back to the Future, the mayor of Vancouver invited me to emcee a gala to fund the city’s new symphony hall. I flew to Canada and stayed with my parents, declining the offer of a luxury hotel. On the night of the event, I strolled into the kitchen in my Armani tuxedo, which I’d paired with black Converse sneakers with a skull and crossbones stitched into the fabric. My dad appraised my look with a frown. “You can’t wear those shoes,” he insisted. “They are disrespectful for the event. Go put on something more appropriate.” Here I was, standing in a house that I bought, with my dad telling me to go back to my room and change my shoes. “Dad, what’s important here is that they want me to be me. I’m just not a patent leather shoes guy. In the process of raising me, you probably noticed that I sometimes make my own rules, and even though you don’t see it, the skull and crossbones affirm who I am.” The point I was trying to make to my dad was that I didn’t want to lose my identity within my newfound fame and success. Every time I looked down at my shoes that night, I was reminded of my true self, and I pledged not to pretend to be someone that I’m not. TIME PORTAL Hollywood, California Circa 1972, 1979, 1985 “Roads . . .” a wise or quite possibly batshit crazy scientist once averred. “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” Catchy, but not entirely true. It turns out, where I was going, I would need roads—in particular, one stretch of highway over the eastern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, where the 101 freeway meets the 134. I, for one, could never have tripped the space-time continuum if not for my sojourns along this ribbon of asphalt, originally a part of California’s fabled El Camino Real. In the modern auto-mobile era, it’s called the Cahuenga Pass. 1985 During the first months of 1985, I laid a well-worn path through this mountain pass, back and forth and back again, never with the benefit of actually seeing it. For the most part, I spent those months in perpetual noir. There was little difference for me between day and night. Just slam! Daylight. Slam! Darkness. While the denizens of Los Angeles enjoyed their sea breezes and warm rays, my daytime hours were spent cocooned in a sunless soundstage at Paramount, where I continued rehearsing and filming Family Ties. The nighttime was reserved for my other job, as I began filming Back to the Future. Emerging from job number one after eight or nine hours, I witnessed only the briefest sliver of sunset. It was the twilight zone, an orphan hour, and I claimed it for my ride in the backseat of a teamster-driven station wagon, a faux-wood-paneled land yacht. My transformative commute over the Cahuenga Pass each night was short but powerful, as I shed type-A wunderkind Alex Keaton, and morphed into the ever impressionable Marty McFly. This journey from the Paramount lot to Universal Studios took me on a straight shot up Gower Street to the 101 (also known as the Hollywood Freeway), then along the pass toward the San Fernando Valley. While I traversed the route from one studio to the other, I could still make out the outline of the Hollywood Hills, dotted with bungalows that for a hundred years had been home to actors, writers, directors, and wannabes who had made their way to the movie mecca, descriptions of which can be found in any Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler novel. In the late 1800s, a wealthy mining baron, Griffith J. Griffith, donated three thousand acres for what would become (you guessed it) Griffith Park, spanning the landscape outside my car window all the way up to the observatory made famous in Rebel Without a Cause. I passed other landmarks on the way to my nighttime haunt, perfectly timed in sync with the ignition of their spotlights, which always made me smile. As if on cue, the lights flooded the Hollywood sign, the Roosevelt Hotel, and Capitol Records, all familiar symbols of Los Angeles. I was in awe of these icons, just as I had been when I first saw them as a tourist, many years before. EXCERPTED FROM FUTURE BOY COPYRIGHT © 2025 BY MICHAEL J FOX AND NELLE FORTENBERRY. EXCERPTED BY PERMISSION OF FLATIRON BOOKS, A DIVISION OF MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS. NO PART OF THIS EXCERPT MAY BE REPRODUCED OR REPRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER. Future Boy hits shelves today, October 14; you can order a copy here.