A Back To The Future Star Could Have Played Sarah Connor In The Terminator

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1984’s “The Terminator” is one of the most beloved sci-fi movies of all time. Directed by James Cameron, it served as his breakout feature and led to his long, storied career as one of Hollywood’s most commercially successful directors. It also helped make the careers of many of the actors on screen, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played the titular Terminator, and Linda Hamilton, who led the cast as Sarah Connor. It turns out, however, that a different actor who went on to star in another famed ’80s time-travel sci-fi flick nearly got the part before Hamilton.

In a 2015 interview on the “Nerdist” podcast, Lea Thompson, of “Back to the Future” fame, revealed that she had once been in the mix to portray Sarah Connor in “The Terminator.” “They were really interested in me for the first ‘Terminator,'” Thompson explained. So, what went wrong? A mishap involving a borrowed car that caused some property damage derailed the whole thing. As Thompson recalled:

“I didn’t have a car. I borrowed my boyfriend’s, cousin’s Pacer and something was wrong with the transmission, so the fluid was leaking out and you had to keep adding transmission fluid to this Pacer. The audition was up on Mullholland and they’re house was down a hill. It was when [Gale Ann Hurd and James Cameron] were still together. So, I actually slid down their hill and took out two new trees and some lights as I slid in.”

At the time, Cameron was indeed dating Gale Ann Hurd, a legendary producer in her own right, with the two getting married for a time in 1985. “It wasn’t really badass, because I was in a Pacer. So, I didn’t get the part,” Thompson added. “I did audition, but I was really upset about causing at least $5,000 worth of damage.”

“My career would have been different if I would have got that one,” Thompson quipped, though she didn’t seem all that sad about it and was clearly having fun recalling the story.

It’s certainly true that anyone’s career trajectory would have changed by being part of “The Terminator,” which was a low-budget affair that went on to become an unexpected hit. Just imagine Thompson instead of Hamilton getting to kick ass in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” one of the greatest sequels of all time. At the time, she had been coming off her turns in movies like “Jaws 3-D” and “Red Dawn” and was seemingly one role away from achieving breakout status. This could have been that breakout role.

Everything worked out very well for Thompson in the end, though. She ended up landing the role of Lorraine in “Back to the Future,” quite probably the greatest time travel movie ever made. Directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg, it was a massive, game-changing success upon its release in 1985, paving the way for an entire trilogy. It’s the kind of role that one can easily build an entire career on, which Thompson has certainly done, cementing her place in film history in the process.

It’s interesting to consider that she could have, in a different timeline, made her career on the back of another sci-fi movie about time travel, albeit of a very different variety. One key difference is that “Back to the Future” ended with a trilogy, and there are no plans to make “Back to the Future 4” or a reboot (so long as Zemeckis lives and breathes, anyway). Meanwhile, the “Terminator” franchise now consists of six movies and two TV shows, with more potentially on the way. In both cases, these properties trace their respective roots back to what are widely considered to be amongst the greatest sci-fi movies ever made.

You can grab “The Terminator” on 4K or Blu-ray from Amazon.