Michael J. Fox fondly remembers a time when young stars were actually "talented"
Michael J. Fox thinks "'80s famous" folks were "tougher" than the stars of today
Older generations’ skepticism of the younger folks coming up is such a time-honored tradition that it’s barely worth commenting on, except for when the older generation is being really funny about it. Like Michael J. Fox’s assessment of whether it was “hard” to be famous in the ’80s compared to now. “Well, you had to be talented,” he told People. “That helped.” Got ’em!
Compared to Gen Z, those who were “’80s famous” were “different” from other stars, and “tougher,” as Fox told the outlet. “We didn’t have social media, we didn’t have any of that crap. We were just famous. Left to our own resources. And it was an amazing time.” The actor added that “We used to bust our ass, our acting muscles and watch other actors and sit around with other actors and talk about acting and talk about it. And now you’ve got people who just go like, who’s your sweater? What’s your sweater you’re wearing? And what’s that dance step? And you’re the most famous person in the world.”
As much as Fox may resemble the old man yelling at a cloud, he’s not entirely wrong—being able to do some moderate dance moves and not much else was leveraged into entire careers by the likes of TikTok stars Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio. But the young “’80s famous” crowd was obviously not exempt from this kind of speculation about their seriousness, either. Just look at Fox’s contemporaries like Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, and Rob Lowe: all had their careers nearly derailed or even destroyed getting stuck with the label “The Brat Pack,” which presented them as unprofessional partiers.
And, truthfully, Fox doesn’t exempt himself from youthful folly (even if he does apparently consider himself more talented and a harder worker than the Hollywood youth of today). In a recent interview with Entertainment Tonight, Fox was shown a video of his younger self waxing poetic about focusing on “his career and trying to set up the base for my life that everyone does when they’re in their early 20s, trying to figure out who I am and where I’m gonna go and how I can achieve my goals.” 40 years later, Fox’s response to himself is simply that “22-year-olds are obnoxious.” And that’s a pronouncement that transcends generations!