The Ohio native has appeared in more than 65 feature films including a star turn as Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Ford Coppola’s landmark film APOCALYPSE NOW, which brought Sheen worldwide recognition. Other notable credits include WALL STREET (with son Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas), the Academy Award-winning film GANDHI (with Sir Ben Kingsley), CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (with Leonardo DiCaprio & Tom Hanks), THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT (with Michael Douglas & Annette Bening), and a Golden Globe nominated breakthrough performance in THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES.

In 2006, Sheen played ill-fated cop Oliver Queenan in Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award-winning film THE DEPARTED opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, and Alec Baldwin. The same year, Sheen joined another all-star ensemble cast for the highly acclaimed feature BOBBY, written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez. BOBBY was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and SAG Award among others. The film also starred Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Helen Hunt, Brian Geraghty, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore, and Shia LaBeouf. For television audiences, Sheen is best recognized for his award-winning role as President Josiah Bartlet in NBC’s THE WEST WING.

Sheen is a passionate peace and justice activist. He has been arrested or cited 67 times for taking part in nonviolent demonstrations against various U.S. military policies, and has championed such causes as the alleviation of poverty and homelessness, human rights for migrant workers, and environmental protection. In 2008, the University of Notre Dame presented Sheen with the Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious award given to an American Catholic. Former recipients include: President John F. Kennedy and Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr.

In THE WAY, Sheen, plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, Daniel (Estevez), killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. He elects to walk The Way himself, and experiences his own emotional, and spiritual transformation…

What did you like about Emilio’s script for The Way?

Tom has this sense of entitlement and you see that when he first has to stay at a hostel; he thinks he’ll have his own room but he’s there sharing this dormitory… ‘This is outrageous’. Then he can’t sleep and he gets stuck with that wretched Dutchman who is always eating, and he tolerates him. And what Emilio is saying, which I thought was very powerful, was that it’s very American to say, ‘We can do it. We’ll decide. I’ll walk this path alone.’ And every time that Tom did it on his own he got in trouble. It was only when he went into the community that he realised that he could rely on people, and that everyone is broken. That’s what it means to be human. But how we make up for brokenness is through each other, and I believe that is how God finds us. In each other. In community, that’s where it is. You don’t have to do it by yourself, and you shouldn’t.

When did you first walk the Camino?

It was the summer of 2003. We were going to take bikes, horseback, and then rented a car. It was stick-shift. Taylor, my grandson, and I couldn’t drive it. Our friend could drive it and he’d teach one of us to drive while the other one walked. At Burgos, though, we fell in love with this refugio [hostel], and we stayed a few extra nights and Taylor met the daughter of the guy who owned it. They’ve been together ever since. She had been serving pilgrims most of her life. They’re about the same age, and she had never done the pilgrimage, so she did it from Burgos and fell in love with the pilgrimage, too.

You’ve worked with Emilio several times now. Do you like his direction?

He understands my ticks and eccentricities. We’ve worked together half a dozen times now. I remember way back I saw Emilio on set of a TV show I was doing in LA, and I thought that he’d come to visit me, but he was in the same show! It was called Insight. It was an anthology series.

Are any of your kids more like you than the others?

It’s strange. You know them in different ways. You know when one child is honest and when one is not. If there’s something I don’t like when I look at one of my children, though, it’s usually a reflection of something I don’t like in myself.

Are you surprised that they wanted to follow you into the same profession?

It did surprise me, and I was totally unaware of it to begin with. I remember Emilio had written a play in high school, and was acting in it, and we went over there to watch it and I saw him do this very emotional scene and it just took my breath away. I looked at him and thought, ‘Oh gosh, him too!’ But he was so good that I was calm about it. I knew then that he’d be okay.

What are your memories of Charlie’s first forays into this world?

Charlie kind of backed into it. He was on the baseball team, and he was very good, but he wasn’t doing his studies. He was ill disciplined, so he got kicked off the team. Charlie really wanted to get back on the team, because they were going into the playoffs, so I went down to speak to the teacher, and he said, ‘Don’t do this to him. You’ll only make things worse. Don’t support him.’ So I was forced to see a side of Charlie that I’d blinkered up until then. So then, as a second thought, he took himself off for an audition and he got the part! I saw him in something and remember knowing that he too knew what he was doing. Then we did a little scene together in a show and he did it so well. The other kids came across in the same way, although not as intense.

How does Charlie’s current behaviour affect your faith?

I include Charlie in my prayers. I always lift him up. I know the hell he lives in, because I was there. So I’m extremely compassionate and understanding. The key is on the inside; you can’t force anyone to do anything, good or ill, without their allowing you in. We’ve been through some very difficult times, but we understand what Charlie’s hell is.

Ramon, another of your sons, worked with you on The West Wing…

Ramon had studied dance and singing and he wrote songs and had a professional song-writing partner in Tennessee. His heart wasn’t in acting, though he loved the business, so he’d work as my assistant very often. And yes, he was my assistant on The West Wing and after that we formed a production company together, ESP, Estevez Sheen Productions, and he was in the office. Then when The West Wing came to an end, my contract with WB was up and I had to leave the lot. But Charlie was still there at WB, so he took things over and the two of them worked together.

You knew The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin from American President, but did you expect the show to do as well as it did?

I knew Aaron was good, and I had just a few small scenes in the pilot, but I knew it was a special show. We all did, but we didn’t have the confidence of it working on a commercial station; we thought it belonged on cable, because our show was not going to be selling cars or placing products. That was the big surprise. We didn’t think it was commercial. It was so non-commercial, and we started in 1999, before Bush. The first two years we were on the air, then he stole the office, was made President and that was the most difficult time for us, because we were so diametrically opposed, so in a sense we were a parallel universe, how things could be. We dealt with the same domestic and international issues as the real President’s office, and this Bartlett guy came from a moral frame of reference. He was Catholic and didn’t separate that from his office. He didn’t go and start a war with someone just to prove to his father that he is a man, which is what our idiot did. If you removed Bush from that office and looked at what we did, what would he be? A mass murderer.

Did you always take your children away on location with you, like to Mexico for Catch-22 and the Philippines for Apocalypse Now?

They came away with me a lot, especially when they were little and didn’t really have a lot of say in the matter. I just grabbed them out of school and took them to some pretty remote places. I did that quite often and we would get right into the community. Going to Mexico was memorable. We just left a blizzard in New York City then we were in San Bernado desert, and the boys would bring home kids from the fishing village. I remember one night Ramone disappeared during this huge carnivale. Here we are in a foreign country and I’ve lost one of my kids! We looked everywhere and then I found a kid, Manuel, from the community and he went and found Ramone for me. That was a crazy time.

Interview Martin Sheen QandA The Way

6:12:00 AM

“The Way” is Emilio Estevez’s fourth film as writer/director and marks the third collaboration with his actor/father, Martin Sheen. Emilio has established himself not only as an accomplished actor, but also as a talented writer, director and producer.

In 2006, he wrote, directed and co-starred in the Golden Globe nominated for Best Picture “Bobby,” which revisits the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in 1968 and is set against the backdrop of the cultural issues gripping the country at the time, including racism, sexual inequality and class differences.

He made his acting debut in Tim Hunter’s “Tex” and appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s ensemble drama “The Outsiders,” both based on S.E. Hinton novels. Estevez’ performance as a quintessential high-school jock in John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” won him widespread attention and acclaim. Later that same year, he went on to appear in “St. Elmo’s Fire” before starring in “That Was Then, This Is Now,” for which he also wrote the screenplay.

Estevez made his directorial debut in 1986 with “Wisdom,” which he also wrote and starred in, while he also directed himself and brother Charlie Sheen in “Men at Work” in 1990. In 1996, Estevez directed Martin Sheen for the first time in the Vietnam drama “The War at Home” which Emilio also starred in and produced.

In 2000, he directed and co-starred alongside his brother, Charlie Sheen, in Showtime’s “Rated X” which was the first time Estevez and Sheen portrayed brothers on screen. His other acting credits include, “Repo Man” “Stakeout,” “Young Guns” “Young Guns II,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “The Mighty Ducks.”

In addition to creating original material as a screenwriter, the past few years have also seen Estevez working behind the camera, directing many popular television shows including, “Cold Case,” “CSI:NY” ”Numbers” and “The Guardian.

In The Way, Martin Sheen, plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, Daniel (Estevez) killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. He elects to walk The Way himself, and experiences his own emotional, and spiritual transformation…


When did the idea for The Way first come to mind?

It began when I was in the middle of casting a follow-up to Bobby, which was a big, expansive LA story, which was multi-charactered. Then the funding finally came to a crashing halt around September of 2008, and my father had come here to Spain and walked part of the Camino with my son, and an old actor friend, who ended up in the movie as the old priest with the pocketful of rosaries. So we began these conversations about making a movie in Spain and I began to work on a draft, using The Wizard of Oz as a template.

With Tom as Dorothy…

Yes, Tom is Dorothy; the Dutchman is the cowardly lion; the girl is the Tin Man with the broken heart; I didn’t have my Scarecrow yet, and then I stumbled upon the book written by Jack Hitt. [Off the Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route into Spain], and thought about using a writer with writer’s block, using Jack himself and his experience on the Camino, as the fourth character. He’s our Scarecrow and when we found the hay bales that you see in the movie along the Camino, I decided that that should be where Tom and the others find him. Initially I had been reluctant to talk to anyone about that Wizard of Oz analogy, but it’s very clear and I don’t think it’s a negative.

Why were you reluctant?

When I was doing the press for Bobby, a lot of people said I was aping Robert Altman, and I said, ‘No, it’s Irwin Allen, this is The Towering Inferno or Poseidon Adventure,’ and I got slaughtered. They said, ‘It’s more like The Loveboat!’ [laughs] The press was not kind, if I’m honest.

You’re making a habit of directing your father: he’s been in three of your movies now…

I know all his fits and phases, like he’s never met a person that he didn’t like, and kindness is an instinct for him. He’ll jump into a crowd, shake everyone’s hand, sign all the autographs, and that’s the wonderful thing about him. But that is also not who this character of Tom is, so I had to keep reminding him that he was not all smiles. Tom is cut off, emotionally cut off, and he can’t be laughing it up with the actors on set. I’d be like, ‘Not yet, it’s too early. We’ll get there.’

You’d have to remind him that the character was extremely conservative and reserved?

I’d remind him: ‘Tom voted for George Bush. Twice!’ Enough said. Tom is emblematic of how America is viewed by the rest of the world — somewhat cut off.

Did you collaborate quite closely with your dad, even though The Way is shot from your script?

Yes, like the river scene is his idea. I was like, ‘This a big deal. If you get killed in the second week of production we have big problems!’ We had to shoot the whole movie in sequence, because we wanted to be true to the landscape of the Camino. The bag gets away, he’s got to get the ashes, save his son, but by the end of the movie it’s all about him and his transformation. But I also thought that the river scene showed what happens when you don’t embrace community — when Tom tries things by himself, bad things happen. The gypsy grabbing the bag? That was his idea, too, as I was plotting. And then the night of the gypsy sequence shoot, he says, ‘Emile, don’t you think the boy should be up in the window?’ That was a great idea, and things like that happened along the way, that he inspired.

Apart from working with your father, the subject matter also has a personal appeal for you. In some way, you lost your son to the Camino, right?

Right. I was thinking, ‘What do I know about losing a son on the Camino?’ And then I thought of what happened with my son: he walked the Camino with my father, and he met a girl on the route. She was the daughter of the innkeeper in a place that they stayed on their journey. My son then moved to Spain, married the girl, and has been gone for eight years. So aren’t I more connected to this story than anything I’ve done in my life? It’s not a lament; I’m glad he’s found a life, it’s just that it’s 6,000 miles away! And I’m not ready to pick up and follow him. I’m sure he’s not too keen on that either! I do miss him, though.

Is your relationship with your son at all similar to your relationship with your own father?

It is. In a way, with my father it feels like we’re friends rather than father and son, and I have the same relationship with my son. With my father we kind of grew up together. He was only 21 when I was born. He was still happy when he could tie his shoes, ‘What do you mean we’ve got a baby in the house?’ It was the same for me; I matured with my children and grew up with them.

The idea in The Way of the wayward son: was that in any way coloured by Martin’s relationship with Charlie?

No, not at all. Daniel is less wayward and more curious. He is curious and doesn’t understand why his father wasn’t. There was more between Daniel and Tom in the longer version of the movie but the scenes were too protracted.

You started directing early in your career. In fact you are still, I believe, the youngest person in Hollywood history to write, direct and star in a movie, with your debut, Wisdom…

It’s a dubious distinction! The only thing I’m sure of it is that it is a film. It’s kind of the same with Men at Work. It was absolute silliness. It reminds me of advice I could give to a young filmmaker: I knew nothing about being on a run with a machine gun [Wisdom]. I knew nothing about being a garbage man [Men at Work]. These are things that are just so completely foreign to me. The best advice you can get is what I got from my mother, but didn’t take: write about what you know about. Otherwise it’s impersonal and there’ll be no connection.

What are your earliest memories of being on your dad’s film sets?

We went to a few but the first big one was Catch-22. He insisted that we all go to Mexico, so we moved there for about six months. To be on that set and see Orson Welles, Jon Voight and Martin Balsam and Mike Nichols. I was old enough to know that he’d just done The Graduate. Here was a formidable cat. And Art Garfunkel; I knew all of his songs. He was sitting in the same restaurant. It was pretty cool to be exposed to that. Growing up we just assumed that everyone lived like this. We were sort of like gypsies; we’d pick up and move and settle in and pick up and move. I was very fortunate to go to Rome for three months, Mexico for six months, and India for seven weeks.

Which director that you’ve worked with as an actor has taught you the most about the craft behind the camera?

I did two movies with John Badham, who’s a wonderful technician. We did both the Stakeout films, although we should only have done the first one because the second one was not well paced or well played, but I learned a lot of technique from John. I had a small part in Mission: Impossible and got to spend a month with Brian De Palma, which I loved. I used to go in on my days off and watch how the big boys do it. He has a style that is very much of his own and that is something I have yet to create for myself. I go to school every time I make a movie. If you were to look at the last four, you’d probably think that was four different directors. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing but I’m still evolving, still developing. Maybe I won’t get to that style; I could just be a journeyman director and keep telling the stories.

Would you want to make a $100 million dollar movie?

No. I couldn’t handle the stress! They’re also made by committee, and if I want to go make something by committee I’ll go make a Cold Case or a Numbers or CSI: New York, where you’re there essentially as a hall monitor! However, those shows do teach you great discipline. I could not have done Bobby without the experience of directing TV. I could not have done The Way in the way we did it, without the experience of TV. From Sydney Pollack to Sydney Lumet, those guys will tell you that they cut their teeth with TV, because of the pace. Somebody hands you a 55-page script and says that you have seven days to shoot it, ‘F--k!’ It’s totally daunting, although the system is there in place to support you. By going through those paces, that was my film school essentially. I just did it after I’d made a series of films! I’d wish I’d had those skills earlier.

Your next film, Johnny Longshot, is a sports movie set in the world of harness racing. Why horse and buggy racing?

I love sports movies and I want to create another family franchise. There’s Secretariat and Sea-biscuit, so people are familiar with thoroughbreds, but standard-breds are a different animal and serve a different purpose. The whole sport is very familial, the kids and wives are involved, and it’s also international. So, potentially, it’s a franchise that starts in the US and you can take your team to Australia, France, and other places where they race. It could be a lot of a fun and it’s a sport that we haven’t seen on screen. And then I’d shoot it like Ben-Hur. In fact I’ve been casting about to see if any of the Ben-Hur stuntmen are available (laughs). No, although actually a few of their sons are. I’d like to shoot in Michigan, where you can get 40 per cent of the costs back. Like I said, I don’t know how to make $200 million movies.

Emilio Estevez Interview Martin Sheen The Way

4:34:00 AM

Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of St James. Driven by his profound sadness and desire to understand his son better, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, leaving his “California bubble life” behind.

Armed with his son’s backpack and guidebook, Tom navigates the 800km pilgrimage from the Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in the north west of Spain, but soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey. While walking The Camino, Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives: a Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) a Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) and an Irish writer (James Nesbitt) who is suffering from a bout of “writer’s block”.

From the hardship experiences along “The Way” this unlikely quartet of misfits create an everlasting bond and Tom begins to learn what it means to be a citizen of the world again, and discovers the difference between “The life we live and the life we choose”. THE WAY was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago.

THE WAY will open in cinemas everywhere across the UK 13th May 2011

Emilio Estevez Martin Sheen Poster The Way Trailer

9:12:00 AM