Most of you reading this likely known Christopher Lloyd best for playing Doc Brown in the Back to the Future movies, and rightly so. His performance as Marty McFly’s mentor is one of several ways the original movie has aged so successfully and certainly one of the most entertaining aspects of the entire film trilogy. Now when it comes to Lloyd’s more recent performances, one that sticks out for me fittingly also involve time travel. He appeared in three episodes of 12 Monkeys, which I consider to be one of the best sci-fi TV shows, and I’m getting a kick out of learning that wild idea he immediately pitched for his villainous character.
This reveal comes from Terry Matalas, created the 12 Monkeys series and discussed his experience working with Christopher Lloyd while on The Sackhoff Show (where he also talked about the “sacrifices” that went into Star Trek: Picard Season 3). Lloyd played Zalmon Shaw, a.k.a. The Missionary, and when he first met Matalas, he wasted no time suggesting making a distinctive change to his physical appearance. The showrunner recalled to Katee Sackhoff:
Christopher, I’ll tell you about the first day I met him, when he came to wardrobe. He read the script and he was so excited and just full of life for it. He was playing a villain who was the father of Tom Noonan, who was a villain in the future, it was a whole thing. And he says, ‘I want to be really weird… I want to shave my eyebrows. I think it would look really strange.’
e played Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription, as well as guest-starred as Commissioner Helgait in The Mandalorian Season 3 episode “Guns for Hire,” which is accessible with a Disney+ subscription. He also has a yet-to-be-revealed guest role in Wednesday Season 2, which premieres its first half August 6 on Netflix.