5Q: Back to the Future — Don Stephenson

Your favorite time-traveling duo is now a Broadway musical — “Back to the Future” takes the Orpheum stage as the kick-off to the 2024-2025 Bank of America Broadway on Hennepin season. Based on the 1985 film starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, the musical showcases original music, as well as familiar songs featured in the film.

Acclaimed actor and director Don Stephenson is taking on the iconic role of Dr. Emmett Brown (nicknamed “Doc”). Despite his many failed inventions, he successfully makes time travel possible by building a time machine out of a DMC DeLorean.

This character and this story are so iconic and memorable for people. How do you approach that challenge and the balance between paying homage while also making it your own?

It is tricky, right? You must thread this difficult needle. Everyone knows Christopher Lloyd’s brilliant performance. At the same time, I’m not doing an imitation. One of the things about acting is you need to listen and respond in time. What I try to do is not imitate his voice but follow his cadence and rhythm in the way he talks. I do it by stretching certain syllables or vowels. Doing that makes the character familiar to the audience. At the same time, the main trait I get from Christopher Lloyd’s performance is the childlike wonder Doc Brown has to everything around him. He embodies that wide-eyed 10-year-old doing a science experiment and having amazement at the results for the first time.

You’ve mentioned before that people keep returning to this story because of the “heartbeat of the story” and the relationships between Marty and his parents. Can you tell me a bit more about what you meant by that?

I think that it’s a story that has everything: science fiction, action, romance, with all the bells and whistles. I think the main reason why people come back to this story so often is because of the heart. It is the feelings and bonds between Doc and Marty, Marty and George, Lorraine and George. Without that, the movie and the musical would not have all the heart it has. It is the reason that keeps individuals coming back.

It is the idea of getting to meet your father at a different age, and to see that relationship form in a new way is so sweet. The father and son dynamic speaks to me the most in the show. It resonates with me as I think of my own father, my relationship to him as his son, and my role now as a father. As you get older, you appreciate your parents more, and you see them differently than you did as a kid. You recognize them doing the best that they could, even when the answers were never obvious. You appreciate them more, and I think that is what happens to Marty. He sees George and Lorraine differently when he travels back in time. In addition, to have Doc as a friend, who will help you out no matter what, is incredible.

Bob Gale really leaned into all these important relationships with the movie and the musical and, to me, it’s more important than the DeLorean or even time travel. The heart and the relationships are why I believe it has become a classic. The flying DeLorean Time Machine, the Flux Capacitor, and 1.21 gigawatts is all great, but the heart of the story is the backbone. Also, the fact that Lea Thompson is a goddess.

Audiences can imagine having other people as costars, and sometimes even animals. But you’ve described the DeLorean as a living, breathing character that people react to. What is it like sharing the stage with a car as a costar?

It is fun because it means so much to people that see it. The audience becomes 10 years old again. When they get into it, it takes you back to that time you first saw the movie. The kid who says, “I want to be in the DeLorean and travel through time.” It is one of those iconic vehicles for our culture, such as the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise. The age and maturity of the audience just falls away, and they rediscover that childlike innocence.

How does your experience as an accomplished director impact how you approach your work as an actor?

First of all, it makes me a great actor to have in the room because I’m very well-behaved. I know the job of the director and what they need. When I’m the actor, I make sure I fulfill what they need because I’ve been on the other side. I approach acting from a director’s point of view because I’m able to analyze what is required of the part. I ask myself, “Am I playing the sidekick, the funny guy who pops out, the tragic tale of the story?” As an actor, you need to fill up the slot that the role demands. Like a glass of water, you need to fill it all the way to the brim. I am always the first up on my feet and ready to go in places when break is over. I know how time is so limited, and I’m always ready to go early.

You’ve talked before about how Doc is always in a state of emergency or a eureka moment and every line is said with an exclamation point. What have been your eureka moments (or maybe your states of emergency) as you started digging into this character and figuring out how to play him?

I saw right away that to appear very intelligent to play Doc, you must be able to go through the dialogue at a decent clip. If you go too slowly, it doesn’t make him seem as brilliant or as smart. You must keep up with Doc Brown’s mind going so rapidly. You have to go over the dialogue a million times so it comes off “trippingly on the tongue,” as Hamlet says. If you get hung up on a certain word, you have broken the rhythm. I would say the entire part out loud as quickly as I could until I could get it up to speed. Christopher Lloyd speaks quickly in the film, and that seemed important to me to portray that Doc Brown’s mind races as quickly as a computer. I wanted to be able to go fast to make Doc Brown seem really smart. It’s a combination of his speed of words, and Doc Brown’s innocence and childlike wonder that was the key to me.

Doc Brown is brilliant, and even though most of his stuff doesn’t work, if this is the one thing that does work, he’s in heaven due to the fact he thought of it. If you think about it, it’s really impossible what he tried to do. The precision and timing that would require the DeLorean to go exactly 88mph, have the hook connect properly, and perfectly align with the bolt of lightning — it’s impossible. However, they do it. It’s a miracle and I love that.

As a kid growing up in Tennessee, I remember all I wanted to do was go on an adventure, and now, eight times a week, Doc and Marty go on this amazing, Hail Mary-style adventure with impossible odds. I have always loved time travel stories, and this is the biggest, most famous, and best one ever made.

“Back to the Future” runs at the Orpheum Theatre through September 22. For more information and to purchase tickets, head to www.hennepintheatretrust.org.