Thomas F. Wilson

Thomas Wilson

Thomas F. Wilson’s instant sucess in Back to the Future enabled him to quickly gain perspective on stardom. The results may surprise you.

by Chris Neumer

I am transcribing my interview with actor Thomas Wilson and am surprised to have come across a nearly ten second gap of dead air in the middle of our conversation. Frantic that my recorder stopped working at minute five of our chat, I am extremely relieved to hear Wilson’s voice again after another few seconds. I rewind the tape to make sure that it is not damaged. It isn’t. I listen to the offending section of the tape one more time and laugh when I realize what had happened: Wilson had paused to think. In a stunning indictment of Hollywood culture, it’s the first time I can remember anyone I’ve interviewed genuinely pausing to collect their thoughts before speaking.

Wilson has been in the public eye since his second film, Back to the Future, broke box office records across America in the summer of 1985. Wilson played bully-extraordinaire, Biff Tannen, to perfection.

Nearly twenty years later, Wilson views his role in director Robert Zemeckis’ films with realistic amusement, another change of pace for me. “It’s not like I’m the bitter guy who wants to turn his back on this thing,” Wilson grins, “I’m just truly out of things to say. I’m on the record about everything.”

Fortunately for me, I don’t want to talk to Wilson about his participation in the teen trilogy. As a matter of fact, after Wilson initially e-mailed me with the statement that he was ‘talked out’ about his role of Biff Tannen, I made the promise that his presence in the Back to the Future trilogy would not ever come up during our interview. “Oh,” Wilson chuckles upon hearing my bold journalistic proclamation, “I challenge you. You’re going for the gold medal, you know?”

I first grew interested in talking to Wilson after seeing him play a sympathetic yet studious gym teacher in the now-defunct series, Freaks and Geeks, when it was released onto DVD. My intrigue heightened when I learned that Wilson has also done a significant amount of voice-over work (he can be heard in numerous roles in the upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants movie) and my interest crested when I found out that Wilson is also a painter from the school of classic realism whose works can be found in art galleries across southern California.

“Acting is just a small portion of what I do creatively,” Wilson demurs humbly. “Acting as I do as a supporting actor, I had to come up with some other creative expressions to keep myself sane.”

Far from being scattered though, it’s soon evident that Wilson is one of those truly unique individuals who is living life on his own terms. This instantly begs the question, ‘How did you get this lucky?’

Wilson laughs again and explains that his entry into Hollywood was fueled by… stand-up comedy (an endeavor he continues to do to this day). “I was studying acting in New York, and wasn’t being hired by anyone to do anything other than to work in an Oriental rug warehouse,” Wilson explains. “A friend of mine, Rich Hall, told me, ‘You’re trying to be an actor, you’re trying to get on television, but in comedy you do a show every night. Actors who are waiting to get on the next cop show can’t say that.’” So Wilson “just started showing up at comedy clubs every night.”

With no comedy training to his credit, Wilson wasn’t exactly sure how to approach his time on stage. “At first I didn’t adopt a persona,” he says, “and so I was very bad. The first time I was on, that was what I thought.” He holds up his hands and grins. “As soon as I approached it like a play, I got better quickly.”

Moving to LA soon thereafter, Wilson got another break from an unusual place: working as a security guard. “A guy at The Comedy Store told me, ‘You’re a big guy. If you want more spots, it would behoove you to be a bouncer here. If other comedians don’t show, you’ll get their spots.’”

After toiling on the comedy circuit and routinely going to auditions, Wilson finally got his big break when he was cast as Michael J. Fox’s nemesis.

Wilson is surprisingly grounded for an actor and hyper-rational to the point that he seems like a normal guy. “People say to me, ‘How do you want to be remembered?’” Wilson recounts. He shrugs once and smiles. “I tell them, ‘I don’t care if people remember me.’” He holds up his hand. “I don’t mean it with any offense,” he adds quickly, “but I really don’t care if people remember me. I have every bit of confidence that my children will remember me with great love and charity, and my wife and friends. So people like the way I work, others don’t. I wish them all well, but I don’t care what they think.”

“Being a young man in my twenties, thinking I’d never escape being identified as a character in pop culture…” Wilson trails off, in thought again. “It forced me to go deeply within myself to get a very solid sense of who I am,” he finally says.

Painting, acting and doing voice-over work among other things, Thomas Wilson is an extremely lucky man.