Ralph Macchio Talks About Being in the Running to Play Marty in BACK TO THE FUTURE

Ralph Macchio is as synonymous with The Karate Kid as Michael J. Fox is with Back to the Future, but as it turns out, Macchio almost landed both roles! The Karate Kid had just come out in 1984, and Back to the Future was being cast by director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg, so it makes sense that Macchio was in talks to join, as everyone involved in the project was at the top of their game.

In his new book, Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me, and also in a /Film interview, Macchio talked about his sit down with Zemeckis and Spielberg to talk about possibly taking on the role, and he said in his book, that he recalls meeting them in a New York City hotel suite for what he describes as a “fast-paced, upbeat, and positive” conversation. Macchio had already read the film’s script and he wasn’t auditioning, but was first just discussing the focus of what they were seeking in an actor to play Marty. Macchio recalled two points they hit on in particular:

“One was the importance of an all-American quality to the character, as was written in the script. The concern was that I had a New York accent that would need to be curbed for the character and a distinct East Coast ethnicity. McFly was apple pie, and as I mentioned in chapter 3 of this book, I came up Fore cannoli.”

Macchio recalls that he tried to demonstrate he could shed his “New York-ness” over the course of the meeting by enunciating more and slowing down his speech patterns. “I imagine it came off as a hilarious train wreck,” he confesses in his book.

He also remembered being asked about the infamous sub-plot where Marty’s mom develops a crush on him as a teenager, saying, “I wish I could say that I had an insightful answer, but I believe I just tap-danced around it and expressed my view that as long as it was entertaining, it should be okay,” Macchio admits.

While he was told the team behind Back to the Future was “unsure” if he was the right fit, he was also given a chance to screen-test for the role with some other candidates. But by that point, Macchio was prepping for his part in Walter Hill’s musical drama Crossroads and he was slated to film The Karate Kid Part II in the summer of 1985.

It’s possible Macchio might have been able to work out his schedule if The Karate Kid and Back to the Future had not been based at different studios. He explained, “Typical Hollywood politics came into play, with one franchise being at Columbia Pictures and the other at Universal Studios, and, in short, the ‘Back to the Future’ discussions didn’t go any further.” He also notes how funny it was that after all that talk of Marty McFly being an “all-American, apple-pie role,” it ultimately went to a Canadian actor.

Everything worked out perfectly though, as Macchio built an epic franchise within The Karate Kid, and Fox was the absolute perfect Marty McFly. Macchio agrees, as he said in his book: “I said it before and I say it again… the right actor got the right part.”