Do we like Christopher Lloyd?
Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record with no harm found, but little on the public record about what he stands for, so it stops short of the top end.
Christopher Lloyd was born in Stamford, Connecticut, in 1938. He started as a summer-stock apprentice at 14, then studied at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner. He put in decades on stage, more than 200 productions by Biography.com's count, before the movies noticed him.
The screen break came in 1975 with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Then came sitcom fame as Reverend Jim on Taxi, which won him two Emmys, and a third in 1992 for Road to Avonlea. Looper reports he first turned down Back to the Future and changed his mind after meeting director Robert Zemeckis. Doc Brown, Judge Doom and Uncle Fester followed.
Scandal is thin on the ground. Looper reports he walked off the set of Shoot the Sun Down in 1978 after frustration with the crew and wouldn't go back, which sounds more like a temperamental method actor than a bully. We searched for court cases, lawsuits and allegations against him and found none from reputable outlets. A tabloid headline about a lawsuit turned out to be about a different Back to the Future actor.
On the harm test, nothing turned up. We found no remarks about trans people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate, no campaigning, and no run of work with figures who push that stuff. His recent credits are Nobody 2 and a guest spot in Netflix's Wednesday, which are mainstream and not culture-war projects. The honest caveat is that he rarely does political interviews, so we can't tell you what he stands for, only that he hasn't done harm.
The recent news is all work. He told the Guardian in 2021 that he has no plans to retire. He plays Bob Odenkirk's father in Nobody 2, and he's out on the convention circuit, including Supanova here in June. He said he takes the roles that come his way rather than waiting for the perfect one.
The real good stuff is his loyalty to his old co-star Michael J. Fox. Lloyd appeared in Expedition: Back to the Future, a Discovery+ series hunting for a lost DeLorean to donate to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. He was also photographed with Fox at the foundation's 2023 gala. It's a modest list, but it's real and it's consistent.