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Mini Bio
Lea Katherine Thompson (born May 31, 1961) is an American actress, singer, dancer and director.
Thompson is best known for her roles as Lorraine Baines-McFly in the Back to the Future film trilogy (1985–1990), Beverly Switzler in Howard the Duck (1986), and Amanda Jones in Some Kind of Wonderful (1987). Other films for which she is known include All the Right Moves (1983), Red Dawn (1984), Dennis the Menace (1993), and The Beverly Hillbillies (1993). In the 1990s, Thompson played the title character Caroline Duffy in the sitcom Caroline in the City. From 2011 to 2017, she co-starred as Kathryn Kennish in the ABC Family-turned-Freeform series Switched at Birth.
Backstage
- "\2012, on [J. Edgar (2011)\] That was just really great. Y'know, when Clint Eastwood asks you to come and play, even if it's one scene, you go. He says, "Jump", you say, "How high?" And I was so curious to see how he works. I thought she was a really interesting character. After kind of researching her, I really wanted to see a whole movie on her. She was a real strange cat. She was a witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee, and she decided what line in what movie was a communist plot. I mean, imagine! Kind of kooky. So she and her politics were, like, really whacked. She was on…"
- "\2012, on [Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)\] I never would've done it if it hadn't been for Howard the Duck (1986). I'd actually turned it down. And, then, when "Howard The Duck" was such a bomb that weekend, Eric Stoltz came and said, "Howard Deutch wants to offer you this movie again". I'd already turned it down, and I was like, "I'd better take it". I just kept hearing this voice going, "Get back on the horse!" I was so devastated. So I said, "Yes", and, of course, that affected my life a lot, because I met my husband, who I'm still married to, and we have two incredible daughters. People lov…"
- "\[2012\] 'Howard the Duck' (1986)\_! That's a really interesting movie. I appreciate my career, because I've had a lot of very interesting ups and downs, and most people... That movie is such a famous flop. In a land of a lot of flops, it's kind of awesome to be in a really famous flop. I mean, it's kind of a poster child for flops. A lot of iconoclasts really love that movie. They love to love something that everyone hates. And those are my kind of folks. I'm happy to be part of that club of people who don't want to be told what's horrible and just want to enjoy it anyway. "Howard the Duck" h…"
- "\2012, on [Jaws 3-D (1983)\] Well, that was my very first part, the very first movie I ever got, but I lied and said I had done a couple of other movies, so when I showed up, I really knew absolutely nothing. Also, I had said that I knew how to water-ski. And I did not. So I had, like, five days to learn really, really complicated water-skiing things, because I had to fit into the Sea World water-skiing show. I don't even know how to swim! So that was an interesting event. I wiped out a lot. But I pulled it off, I think, because I was a ballet dancer. The acting... was not so good. But I looke…"
- "{2012, on the "Back to the Future" trilogy\] Well, I mean, seriously, how lucky am I? That part was such a gift, you know? They just don't come along that great. I've had a few great parts, and that's definitely at the top of the list. For some reason, I just really got her. I got the depressed, beaten-down, drunken Lorraine, and I got the young, silly, oversexed, repressed Lorraine from 1955. Some parts just click in your head, and you just go for it. I remember the audition or screen test - whatever it was - at Amblin, where Steven Spielberg was working the camera. It was just so much fun, p…"
- "\[2012\] Red Dawn (1984) was really the most fun I ever had making a movie, because I love Westerns, and I love the idea of being a tomboy, and riding horses and shooting guns. I remember Jennifer Grey and I being, like, tormented but amazed by the politics of "Red Dawn", but the truth is that the story is a fascinating one. The idea was so interesting. The movie is like a really, really low budget of its day. You don't see anything. They talk about how Chicago just fell to the Russians, but you don't see it. We only talk about it. I think it's kind of powerful on that level, that it's more li…"
- "\[2012\] Casual Sex? (1988) Well, that was based on a "Groundlings" sketch, and it was a really interesting movie because we basically shot the movie, then they tested it and pretty much reshot half of it. It was really weird. Andrew Dice Clay was designed to be the complete buffoon, then, for some reason, they made me marry him in the reshoots. I've never seen anything like it. This happens a lot, though. Recently, I watched the trailer for it, and they have all these scenes from when he was a buffoon that they'd cut out of the movie but still put in the trailer. So that was bizarre. They act…"
- "\[2012\] SpaceCamp (1986) was an interesting movie because, after the first day of filming, we were already 10 days behind schedule. And it kind of kept on that way. It was supposed to be a three-month shoot, and it ended up taking six. We had T-shirts printed up that said, "SpaceCamp: It's Not Just A Movie, It's A Career". Oh, actually, instead of SpaceCamp, it actually said SpaceCramp."
