Bully label just doesn’t fit Tom Wilson

Tom Wilson did such a good job portraying Biff the bully in "Back to the Future," strangers often bully him by saying "I hate you" to his face.

"An unfortunate motif in my life," Wilson told me, "has been a lot of people (see) 'Back to the Future' — a movie about a time-traveling DeLorean — they see it as some kind of reality, and they think I'm a horrible person because of it.

"There are few people on Earth who have had so many people in their adult lives come up to them and say 'I hate you' than me."

Wilson is not only a successful actor (on Nickelodeon's "Pig Goat Banana Cricket") and author ("The Masked Man: A Memoir and Fantasy of Hollywood"), he's a comedian performing stand-up Thursday-Sunday at the Laugh Factory in the Tropicana hotel.

But maybe only criminals receive as much hatred directed toward them in offhanded remarks at barbecues, he joked.

"It hasn't upset me over the years. I have just found it profoundly odd."

"Fans" seldom smile when they say small, mean things.

"They have to express their hatred and revulsion before they say, 'Oh, but I know that's a movie.'

"Frequently, it's me in the conversation who is forced to say kiddingly, 'You know, movies are pretend, cars don't fly, time travel doesn't exist, when a tiny guy punches me in the face I don't get knocked unconscious, it's a story and I was acting, and as soon as they said 'cut,' Michael J. Fox and I would go and get snacks.'"

Wilson laughed (a little) while we talked about this.

But there's more situational irony to come: When Wilson portrayed Biff (perhaps the most iconic comic bully in film history), Wilson's acting was informed by his childhood, because he was picked-on as a boy.

"I was a sickly outcast kid who liked the arts," Wilson said.

"I was absent from school a lot. I had asthma. So I was pushed around by bullies most of my childhood through school, so the worst possible thing you could be to me is a bully who pushes people around for no reason other than the joy you get from shoving some kid. It's beyond me."

Wilson thinks people feel entitled to hate him, because the movies molded their psyches.

"The story affected them very deeply, and they have to express it to me," he said. "They don't think out a great deal of how it would be best to approach me, so they say, 'I hate you, why were you mean to him, what are you beating up that guy for?'"

They do an impression of him as a guerilla in a zoo.

He stressed this bullying thing doesn't affect him deeply.

"I have sort of a Teflon exoskeleton about it, and I just keep on truckin'," he said.

The flip side is, "a universe" of actors have expressed their love for the movies and an appreciation for his performance.

Wilson is one of many actors confused in real life for his fictional portrayal of a villain.

"Bela Lugosi was a classically trained actor in the theater of Eastern Europe. He was a magnificent artist and person of the stage. And he came to America and was known as Dracula," Wilson said.

"You can't rail against fate, in trying to do a great job, actually doing a great job, and having people identify you with that."

You can listen to our conversation on my podcast at DougElfman.com.

Wilson said he believes people generally over-relate to fictional universes by mirroring such grandiosity in their own lives.

"We're all the hero of our own story," he said. "We see movies being overdramatized, and television news being overdramatized. I think it's natural to overdramatize our own narrative where the hero, us, is being besieged every day by larger and larger villains."

I told him I'm sure people (including me) sometimes think of themselves as heroically as when Marty's dad punched Biff to save Marty's mom. He agreed.

"Everyone in their hearts will dramatize the issue at hand to be a gigantic, climactic scene between absolute antagonist Biff and helping this lovely waif. It's not really like that, as we're driving on the freeway, but we make it that."

Wilson isn't exempting himself from occasionally reacting harshly when upset. But he has a simple solution for himself:

"You might as well wake up, and go smile at someone, and try and be kind."

IMAGINE CHARITY

If you're out by the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign Thursday night, you'll see it lighted up bright gold from 8 p.m. until midnight. What's the occasion?

It's a charity nod to a teen fan of Imagine Dragons, a 17-year-old who was killed by cancer.

The Las Vegas pop band on Thursday will perform an acoustic concert at a Four Seasons hotel gala, featuring local dignitaries, and it's a fundraiser for their charity.

The band became very close to the late fan, so they got together with his family and formed the Tyler Robinson Foundation in his name.

The charity is connected with 12 children's hospitals, and growing.

At Thursday's gala, Imagine Dragons will be joined by Robinson family members; Elaine Wynn; TV hosts Jason Hewlett and Rachel Smith; rocker Paul Shortino ("Raiding the Rock Vault"); Dan Cox ("Bachelor in Paradise"); Zowie Bowie's Chris Phillips; Jennifer Romas ("SEXXY The Show"); performers from "Fantasy," "Jersey Boys" and "Absinthe"; skier Mikaela Shiffrin and other athletes; artist Tim Cantor; and humanitarians, entrepreneurs and charity execs.

For more, check out Trf.org.

GOSS AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

Caesars Palace headliner Matt Goss, whose mother was killed by breast cancer, will perform Thursday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to help raise money for the Susan G. Komen organization.

The Kennedy Center gala will also feature Joan Lunden, Deborah Norville, and, naturally, quite a few senators and representatives from Congress.

Goss has been a steady supporter of Komen and other cancer charities for several years, and is singing for the USO soon.

Doug Elfman can be reached at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. On Twitter: @VegasAnonymous.