Michael J Fox: ‘The way Michael Harte did that still makes me cry’

“You know the way they always say ‘you should never meet your heroes …,’” Michael Harte begins. “Well I think that’s nonsense. Because sometimes they’re what you expect and so much more.”

Nowadays, a Bafta winning and Emmy nominated editor, Michael was seven years old on his first trip to the pictures in late 1989 after his family had moved into Letterkenny from Murlough, Lifford. At the ‘old’ cinema, located on the Port Road, he sat, popcorn on lap and fizzy drink in hand, as the lights went down for a screening of Back to the Future II.

Michael was immediately transfixed by Michael J Fox, who played Marty McFly - a 17-year-old high school student who is sent 30 years into the past to 1955 in a time-travelling DeLorean by maverick scientist Doc Brown.

“I adored the film, even though I didn’t totally understand it as I hadn’t seen the original Back to the Future,” Michael says. “Renting from the Midnight Owl video rental shops in Letterkenny, I soon watched them all. Even now I still would, maybe three times a year. My son Daniel, who is two, watches it and we’re going to have to tell him soon that Marty McFly isn’t a real person.”

Having studied Communications in DCU and then a Masters in Film Studies at UCD, Michael’s most notable credits include the multi-award winning Three Identical Strangers and Don’t Fu*k With Cats, which won a Bafta for best editing. His other credits include the Emmy nominated On The President's Orders’ and Torn.

This Friday, Still: A Michael J Fox Movie will be streamed by Apple, and screened in Ireland at Pálás in Galway and Dublin’s Light House Cinema. Monday’s Universal Studios premiere in Los Angeles was postponed because of a writers’ strike. That meant Michael could return to London, where he is based, with fianceé Clare and sons Daniel and Ray, who is 10 weeks.

“The film, which incorporates documentary, archival and scripted elements, recounts Fox’s extraordinary story in his own words — the improbable tale of an undersized kid from a Canadian army base who rose to the heights of stardom in 1980s Hollywood,” is how it’s described by Apple.

“The account of Fox’s public life, full of nostalgic thrills and cinematic gloss, unspools alongside his never-before-seen private journey, including the years that followed his diagnosis, at 29, with Parkinson’s disease.

“Intimate and honest, and produced with unprecedented access to Fox and his family, the film chronicles Fox’s personal and professional triumphs and travails, and explores what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease. With a mix of adventure and romance, comedy and drama, watching the film feels like … well, like a Michael J Fox movie.”

Here’s how it happened. Michael, in 2017, was editing Three Identical Strangers - a true story that follows triplets separated at birth who met entirely by coincidence when they became adults. It would, in the end, earn an Emmy nomination, but in the beginning Harte and Tim Wardle spoke of the need for a 1980s feel.

Will Cohen, Producer, Michael Harte, Editor, Matt Dentler, Head of Features, Apple Original Films, Davis Guggenheim, Director/Producer, Michael J Fox and Jamie Erlicht, Apple's Head of Worldwide Video, attend the world premiere of Apple Original Films 'STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie' at the Eccles Center at Sundance Film Festival 2023

“As we looked through movies from that time, we spoke of how Michael J Fox would make a brilliant documentary film,” Michael says. “It seemed like an idea, although Davis Guggenheim - an American writer, director and producer - was already on it. I was eventually put in contact with Davis - who liked the cut of Three Identical Strangers - over a zoom call and with the time difference sat up at 2am discussing the possibilities.

“Davis and I clicked right away and when I told him ‘I am from Donegal and my family have a holiday home in the south-west of the county in Carrick, which you are more than welcome to use.’ He loved the idea and that was that.”

Davis Guggenheim in "STILL: A Michael J. Fox Movie," premiering this Friday on Apple TV

Michael’s mother is Mary, whose late father Mick Galligan was a Garda for 40 years, based in Carrick for a spell and married to Anna, who still Iives in Glenties. And Michael’s father is Jimmy Harte, the former Labour senator originally from Raphoe and the son of Paddy, who served for 36 years as TD for Donegal North-East.

Michael J Fox was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1991 and Michael and Davis went through the possibilities as to how to best put a show, which might prove delicate, together. There was an audiobook, eventually an interview. Recreations were considered, although they’re essentially an actor playing an actor.

“Michael Harte, the film’s editor and my creative partner on it, brought a brilliant and form-breaking idea to this, which was to use scenes from Michael J Fox’s work to portray his actual life,” Davis says of the clincher. “Luckily, we had a lot of great clips to work with.

“One example would be the scene where he goes to meet with Gary David Goldberg, who created Family Ties. Gary tells Michael that he’s been offered Back to the Future. Now, that moment wasn’t filmed, of course. But Michael Harte took footage from an entirely different movie, Bright Lights, Big City, to create the scene.

“There’s another scene from that movie where Michael and Tracy Pollan, who would go on to marry him in real life, are on a date and it’s as if there was a camera crew on a New York City street seeing them kiss for the first time.”

Tracy Pollan and Michael J Fox attend the world premiere 

The jigsaw slotted into place. Michael spent seven weeks binge-watching Michael J Fox and some of the old favourites, like Back to the Future, Teen Wolf and in particular, Family Ties, the sitcom that really announced the pint-sized Fox to the world back in the early 1980s.

Although Michael had seen most of the scenes before, this time it was different. He sat attentively, with pen in hand, looking through a different lens with the framework of Still in mind. Sometimes he even had to remind himself his role was not one of a film fan. Eventually, it was pieced together and certainly struck a chord with the protagonist.

“The way Michael Harte did that still makes me cry when I watch it,” Michael J Fox says of the scene with Tracy Pollan. “When I saw the use of that footage in that context, I went, ‘This guy is in love with her big-time.’ And that was what was happening in real life.”

Back to the Future could’ve been so different. Director Robert Zemeckis always wanted Fox, although Eric Stoltz was the original Marty McFly before he was fired. At the time, Fox was tied to Family Ties before a compromise was reached. During filming in early 1985, Fox rehearsed for Family Ties from 10am to 6pm, then rushed to the Back to the Future set at Oxnard, California, where he would rehearse and shoot until 2:30am, only night scenes until he was finally freed up a few months later to go in front of the camera for those in daylight.

Life as an editor sometimes requires similar exhaustive diligence, although Michael says there were no severe time pressures with his family joining him on the west coast of the United States. It was a matter of getting the formula right and then it would then be presented in a first draft to Fox.

“I was on a few zooms with Davis and Michael J Fox and eventually met him as we watched the rough cut in Los Angeles,” Michael says. “I found him so modest, smart and knew what was working and what wasn't - he would always say to us ‘you make it’ to give us control.”

The film is one that jangles emotions. From Fox’s upbringing in the Canadian city of Edmonton, to chasing his dream through doubts, financial difficulties in a couldn’t-swing-a-cat apartment and a diet he joked was ‘sponsored by Ronald McDonald,’ to making the break. There’s the unbreakable bond with Tracy and their four children - Sam Michael, Aquinnah Kathleen, Esmé Annabelle and Schuyler Frances - throughout the travails of life with a debilitating, incurable disease. He gets knocked down. But he gets up again.

He has battled through life with a smile and endeavour and used his plight to raise almost $2 billion dollars through the Michael J Fox Foundation. They are dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease. He may be 62 in June and looks a little more frail these days, but he still possesses the youthful charm and devilish wit he had when he scooted around Hill Valley, sometimes on a hoverboard, back and forward in time. Michael J Fox is one of life’s good guys and 90 minutes watching the story all in the one place makes you realise - as Michael suggested - he’s what you expect and so much more.

“Michael J Fox is inspiring and his family unit is so solid, it’s what makes him,” Michael concludes. “He once said ‘Family is not an important thing. It’s everything’ and that’s exactly the way he lives his life. Even with his illness, his attitude is so optimistic and positive and that’s the way we tried to portray him because that’s who he is. And as for Carrick, Davis hasn’t taken up the offer just yet but it’s still open and who knows we might get screening in Donegal?”