If you think Marty McFly, the character Michael J. Fox plays in "Back to The Future," has trouble dealing with bully Biff Tannen, you should see how much trouble Thomas Wilson is having with Biff.
Wilson reprises Biff in "Back to The Future" sequel and then again in the second sequel, scheduled for summer release.The problem for Wilson is that, despite his bulky 6-foot-2-inch frame, he never was and never could be a bully. In fact, back in junior high school in Philadelphia, when he was a skinny, shy and sickly youngster, he was a convenient and frequent target of the school bullies.
Those painful memories are still fresh, he said, and are constantly being dredged up during filming of the "Back to the Future" movies.
"It was even bad during auditions when I had to read a scene with Crispin Glover (who played George McFly in the original `Back to the Future' but will not return in the sequels)," he said. "I was doing my lines, and I looked up and Crispin was giving me this pained and frightened look. It was so real that I stopped the scene to ask him if he was OK.
"Although I love these movies, it is strange to play a bully because those childhood memories really stick with you.
"Actually, I was George McFly in school," he added. "I had asthma, was on the debating team and played the tuba in the school band. There was a whole gang of people in school who liked to punch me in the back of the head. And as I got older, the circle of people who pummeled me kept widening."
Two years ago, after his success in "Back to the Future," Wilson - now the father of two young girls and living with his wife in a hillside home in suburban Los Angeles - was invited to a 10-year class reunion.
He said he thought about attending, but those memories still hurt.
"Bullies are jerks, and they deserve to be punished their whole life," Wilson said. "They should be tied up, chained to a truck and then dragged around a rodeo pit. I have no sympathy for them.
"And I get a lot of that kind of talk since I played Biff. People are always asking whether I now understand the bully's point of view and if I have found the nice parts of their character. Well, I haven't.
"Let's face it, bullies are cruel individuals, and they grow up to be cruel adults. When you meet these guys in later life, they're still jerks, and they still have no compassion for other human beings. There are some real monsters out there, and I'm playing one of them.
"So to answer your question," he added softly, "I didn't go to my high school reunion."
For all his disclaimers, though, Wilson would be the first to admit that his character is a dream come true for a struggling actor and stand-up comic who already is part of one classic film and in all likelihood will find himself in three, once both sequels are history.
In the new film opening this week, Wilson's part has not only been enhanced over the first film, but he now plays seven characters - Biff and various members of his family, ranging in age from 18 to 78.
When he played the 78-year-old, opposite himself in a scene as a young man, he said he had to report for makeup at 3 a.m. Five hours later, he was ready to do his scene, or to be more exact, half his scene.
"I would do half the scene as the old man and the camera's computer would lock in the scene," he explained. "Then I would return to makeup to be made back into a young man. Then they would insert an ear piece and I would hear myself as the old man and I would fill in the blanks in the conversation.
"It's an incredibly exciting way to do a scene but not something I was accustomed to. Acting is usually a matter of watching the other actor in the scene and reacting to what he's saying or doing. In this case, there was nobody to react to.
"At the end of the day, which normally went about 18 or 19 hours, I was completely wasted, and I'm not sure I could ever do it again. But what a challenge. Actors get to do twins or they get to age, but they never get to do it all in one movie."
Wilson, 30, came to acting through stand-up comedy, which he took up in New York after trying to make it in the theater as a dramatic actor.
"I was doing really serious stuff like `Richard III,' and I was a pretty serious guy at the time," he said. "I was going to save the American theater as we know it. But, of course, I wasn't making much money at it, and some of my friends had gotten into comedy.
"They said, `Hey, you're a goofball, you should try it,' and I did, and it worked out pretty well. Ten dollars and a cheeseburger for a night's work was better than sitting home watching television and making nothing."
He still went out for auditions, even though comedy was starting to look promising, but in 1981, he decided to move west.
"Here I was, a big, blond, all-American type, and all they ever wanted in New York were guys full of angst. Even though I thought of myself as serious stuff, nobody in New York did, and they all told me to go to California where they love guys like me. They told me to do `Dukes of Hazzard' or dog food commercials."
He took their advice and did a few commercials and got the occasional acting job when, in 1984, he got THE CALL.
Although Steven Spielberg was connected with the picture, Wilson said the cast wasn't sure it would be a big hit and certainly never considered that it might gross more than $200 million at the box office.
"There was nothing wrong with the story, and I think it has become a classic because kids are fascinated with the idea of meeting your own parents and realizing that they're just kids who grew up and had kids of their own. It's the circle of life."