Lea Thompson On ‘Back To the Future,’ Fake Boobs & Why She Taught Her Daughters To Have Good Sex

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Lea Thompson in Back To The Future. Photo: Courtesy

Thirty years ago Lea Thompson’s life changed completely. The actress, then best known for movies like Jaws 3-D and Red Dawn, was cast as Lorraine Baines McFly in Back To The Future and for Thompson, everything since then has been a result of that role and that film.

“I never really set out to be an actress,” admits Thompson, now 54, admits at London’s posh Corinthia Hotel where she’s gathered with the rest of the Back To The Future cast to celebrate the film’s thirtieth anniversary. “I was a dancer. I got lucky by not being a good enough dancer so I started acting. I was just on this kind of whirlwind. I started getting movie after movie. And for some reason Lorraine just clicked. She was inside of me. I just felt so excited to get it.”

The film yielded two sequels and the trilogy is now being re-released on Blu-ray and DVD as Back to the Future: The Complete Adventures today, October 20. (It includes collectible light-up “Flux Capacitor” packaging, among other special extras.) The continued interest in both Thompson and the film is a tribute to its success – and to how much each subsequent generation has gravitated toward its story. For Thompson, Lorraine ended up not being just one role, but various incarnations of the character throughout time in each film.

“It was fun in the one with fake boobs,” she laughs, referring to Back To The Future II, in which Lorraine is forced to marry villain Biff Tannen and embodies a very specific look. “It was painful because I was covered in plastic. But that one was fun – to be sitting there in the make-up room with my boobs out. Everyone would come in and gasp, and I’d be like ‘It’s plastic!’ I’ve had that experience in real life having two babies and my boobs got really big. It was really funny to me because I’d say to my husband ‘Look how big my boobs are!’ and he’d have no reaction.”

Thompson’s notoriety surged thanks to the trilogy and after Back To The Future III came out in 1990 she was unsure what sort of expectations to put on her career. She’s continued working successfully as an actress since and despite having no regrets, Thompson is aware that she could have played things differently. “Perhaps I should have had a better goal,” she reflects of the time following Back To the Future. “As an actor my goal has always just to work hard and be a solid person, which I think I’ve achieved. I guess it’s possible to say that I peaked at 25 and I’ve never done anything as big as Back To The Future, but I feel like I’ve done really good, solid work and never stopped. My goal obviously was never to be the biggest star in the universe, but it was always to have as good of a life as I could possibly have along with working consistently.”

The actress, who famously starred on TV comedy Caroline And The City for four seasons in the mid-‘90s, says she has found herself creatively as the rich, conservative housewife Kathryn Kennish on ABC Family’s teen drama Switched At Birth, which is currently airing its fourth season. “Even people here in London at the London Film and Comic Con know the show,” Thompson says. “I had hundreds of people tell me how much they like it and I don’t even know if they show it on TV here. My daughter [on the series] can’t hear so the whole deaf community all over the world loves it.”

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Lea Thompson, 54, stops by a photo call in Times Square. Photo: Getty Images

It’s a role that Thompson is deeply grateful for, mostly because she acknowledges that Hollywood is not generally interested in women her age. She’s directed three episodes of Switched At Birth, as well as two TV movies, and finds the inherent sexism of Hollywood frustrating.

“There’s just no roles,” Thompson admits. “They don’t exist. It’s not so depressing because there’s TV and TV has roles for women. It’s certainly not as bad as it used to be.” She pauses, then asks, “Did you see that Amy Schumer sketch ‘My Last F—ble Day?’” She’s referring to a sketch from Inside Amy Schumer in which Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Patricia Arquette joke that every actress has an expiration date on sex appeal. “I was shocked because when Julia Louis-Dreyfus declared that her last f—ble moment was when she was 56 or something,” Thompson exclaims. “I was like, ‘Dude, that’s old! I thought my last f—able moment was 35!’ I was happy to see it was 56. That’s progress.”

Thompson’s next project is directing a film written by her 24-year-old daughter Madelyn Deutch. The film, which goes into production this month, will star Thompson’s other daughter, Zoey, 20, who recently appeared in Vampire Academy, and Zoey’s real-life boyfriend Avan Jogia. It’s a relationship tale in the vein of Girls and a movie that Thompson says is “going to be the coolest thing ever.” It’s an opportunity for her to work with her daughters, with whom she’s very close. Both still live at home with Thompson and her husband in their two guesthouses and she’s deeply invested in ensuring they have good lives – and, in particular, good sex lives.

“I was very specific about sex being so much better with someone that you love and someone that you care about,” Thompson says, honestly. “That it’s actually physically better. It’s just not going to be good if the guy doesn’t care about you – you don’t want some creepy guy touching you when you’re drunk. I was very specific and it was really useful to them as they’ve gotten older and have really good lives and very healthy outlooks on it. I was really upfront like, ‘Sex is really great, I want you to have really great sex lives because you’ll have a happier life and I don’t want it to be creepy and weird.’ My mother did the same thing with me and I had the same experience.”

Looking back on Thompson’s work in the Back To The Future trilogy, it’s easy to remember her as someone who embodies this blunt tone. Lorraine was open about her sexuality, even if it was to the detriment of her time-traveling son, and Thompson has always been willing to walk the line between traditionalism and innuendo. She continually best embraced parts that allow her traverse the idea of being slightly uncomfortable. “I had a good sense of humor and understanding of the subversive nature of the part,” she reflects of Lorraine. “I got it completely. In my first job I was a Burger King counter girl in this now-famous commercial with me, Elisabeth Shue and Sarah Michelle Gellar – all of us. I knew the subversive nature of that, like ‘We know what you want! Juicy pickles!’ I knew the ‘Be cute, but sex sex sex.’”

She’s concerned, an actress now, that Hollywood just wants to her to sell the wholesome mom roles and hopes that going forward films and TV shows arise that will let her find an edge again. There’s more of Lorraine’s personality left in Thompson, as long as the industry will let her explore it (especially since, she now knows, it’s not yet her last f—able day).

“In my work I try to make people feel comfortable,” Thompson says. “That’s something I didn’t realize until I sat next to Steve Carell. I sat next to him and was talking to him and I realized his kind of comedy is to make people feel uncomfortable and a lot of actors do that. In real life it’s very hard for me to have a weird pause. I’m always trying to make people feel comfortable and I think that’s what people cast me as. But trust me, if someone wanted me to make people feel uncomfortable I’d be happy to do it.”

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