How Back to the Future Star Played a Darker, More Horrifying Version of Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka
Back to the Future star Christopher Lloyd has given some incredible performances over the past few decades. One of these performances is his character Wonka in the parody film, Gobstopper. He played the role alongside Wee Man from Jackass and Zach Gilford from Friday Night Lights.
Lloyd is best known for playing the character of Doctor Emmett “Doc” Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy from 1985-1990. He has been in the mainstream Hollywood entertainment industry since 1975 when he made his debut as Max Taber in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Back to the Future Star’s Wonka Was Unique
Willy Wonka is a character that has been adapted numerous times in the past decades. Johnny Depp portrayed Willy Wonka in the 2005 film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory directed by Tim Burton. Jerome Silberman, professionally known as Gene Wilder, played the same character in 1971. Timothée Chalamet will be seen playing the chocolatier in the upcoming movie Wonka.
The first trailer for ‘WONKA’ has been released.
In theaters on December 15. pic.twitter.com/G3Vl6clO9S
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 11, 2023
Gobstopper ended up being a horror-comedy in which the Back to the Future star made Wonka look like a cannibalistic serial killer that made candies out of his victims. In fact, it was his performance that made Gobstopper a feature-length film despite not being released as one.
Every Wonka movie to date has a charm of its own and so does Lloyd’s although it was more scary than charming. It is one of the most underrated performances of the ReRun star as he single-handedly made the whole movie worth a watch even if it isn’t as remembered as the other renditions of Wonka.
Gobstopper isn’t Hollywood’s first attempt at horror-comedy and won’t be the last. Steven LaMorte’s The Mean One released in 2022 and Rhys Waterfield’s Winnie The Pooh: Blood and Honey released in 2023 were pretty poor attempts at horror-comedy as compared to Gobstopper which isn’t even a real film.
Christopher Lloyd Has Done Some Great Work
Over the years, Lloyd has played many incredible characters including some that needed to be portrayed with great precision. One of these characters is Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. It was a role that the actor really wanted to play as that was his favorite character as he grew up reading cartoons.
Read More: The Addams Family Cast: Then vs Now
Initially, the actor was worried that he wasn’t doing the character justice and so would be recast but that wasn’t the case. He said: “They thought the prosthetics were limiting my facial expressions, so we chucked the prosthetics… and I was very, very relieved.” What Lloyd thought was his fault was actually just his makeup stopping him from giving his best.
Lloyd’s dedication to playing his characters well led him to stay at an asylum for two months to capture the essence of the role of Max Taber in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.
Source: CBR, ScreenRant
