It’s
no surprise that Emilio Estevez called upon his father, Martin
Sheen, when he was casting his latest film as writer-director,
Bobby. Not only have they acted together before but Estevez
previously directed his Dad in 1995 Vietnam saga The War
at Home. This time, Sheen is just one of many A-List stars
on show in this story set on the day Bobby Kennedy was assassinated
at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angles. He plays one of the
hotel guests, Jack, a depressed stockbroker who turns out
to be married to a much younger woman (Helen Hunt).
It marks yet another prestigious project
for Sheen, who was recently also seen working for Martin
Scorsese on The Departed. Best known to a generation of
television viewers as President Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlet
in the long-running White House-set series The West Wing,
the Ohio-born actor has worked with some remarkable directors
in his time. These include Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse
Now), David Cronenberg (The Dead Zone) and Oliver Stone
(Wall Street and JFK, where he provided the voiceover narration).
He will next be seen in The Commission, yet another politically
oriented movie dealing with the Warren Report that came
after the death of John F. Kennedy.
Q: Were you always going to be in Bobby?
A: I was always committed. I told
Emilio from the beginning – he
started writing in 1999 – whatever I could do, I would
be delighted. And not to worry if there was no part for me – I
just wanted to be encouraging. When he finally got it going
with some independent money, the first actor that came in
was Anthony Hopkins. He read it, and came to his door, and
said, ‘I must play this part.’ As soon as Anthony
came in, the rest of the players came in in droves. Laurence
Fishburne is an old friend of Emilio’s since childhood,
and he had just come back from Tokyo and Mission: Impossible
III. And he was back home and on set in 24 hours.
Q: Did you know many of the cast involved?
A: I didn’t know half of them. I didn’t know
the young ones. I didn’t know who Lindsay Lohan was!
I didn’t know why they were making such a fuss over
this little girl! Although she is marvellous in the film.
I didn’t know who [Ashton] Kutcher was. The one little
boy from Lord of the Rings, Elijah Wood, I knew who he was
but I had never met him – or any of these kids. I know
Anthony and Laurence, but the others – like Bill Macy
and Sharon Stone – I knew by name. Actually, I had
worked with Sharon in her very first movie, many, many years
ago. Helen Hunt I was a big fan but I never met her…actually,
I did meet her once on the campaign trail. We campaigned
together for Al Gore, but we never worked together.
Q: What are your memories of Bobby Kennedy?
A: Oh, Jesus! Just profound. I had
worked as a volunteer during the senatorial campaign in
New York City in 1965 and had met him at that time, and
spent a little time with him. I’d seen him one more time after that during a rally
for a police review board in New York in ’67.
Q: What do you recall about the day he died?
A: During the campaign for president,
during the primaries, when he was going all over the country… that summer
we went down to visit my mother-in-law, near where Janet
grew up, a little community in Ohio – I’m from
Deyton, Ohio, but she grew up in Cleveland, though she was
born in Kentucky. We were in a little community called North
Benton, Ohio, which is just south of Cleveland, eighty miles
or so. We were going to be there for a few months. The night
before, we went to a drive-in movie, all of us in the car.
We came back, late in the night, and I turned on the news
to see how it was going. It looked like he had it all in
hand, so I didn’t stay up any later and wait for his
victory speech. I went to bed. Early the next morning, Emilio
woke us up and said he’d heard on the news that Bobby
was shot. He was six. He knew my involvement but he had his
own memory of it, which was very strong. I didn’t realise
how strong it was.
Q: And this strong association continued?
A: Well, in January 1969, I went to
Mexico to do a part in a film. We were there for four months
and we came back across the border to Tuscon and drove
to Los Angeles as a family – and the first place I went was the Ambassador
Hotel, because I wanted to make a pilgrimage to that spot.
So I took everybody straight away, and we went into the kitchen – and
it was hallowed ground. We had breakfast in the coffee shop
upstairs. I had not been in that coffee shop since, until
I walked onto the set – and it was the last room that
they had saved for Emilio before they tore the building down.
Most of it has gone now – and I walked in the room
to say ‘hello’ and thought, ‘My God, this
is so familiar’ and Emilio reminded me that I’d
brought him there as a child.
Q: So you knew more than Emilio did about the period?
A: No! He had done extensive research.
He knew more about that day and the events that surrounded
that hotel than anyone I knew – even people who were
actually there. He knew more than I did by far.
Q: Are you surprised that Bobby has not done as well as
it might in the States?
A: I’m not surprised, I’m disappointed. I had
hoped it would do much better. It took some very severe criticism
in the American press from a lot of reviewers. Many of them
missed the point and were not intrigued by the scenario or
the whole concept. Emilio took a very novel approach, by
using fictitious characters and mixing them together with
real history – Robert Kennedy is himself in the film
from past footage. And we are fictitious characters. What
he was trying to show was the effect of random violence,
the horror of random violence, because of the five people
that were shot – some of them very seriously wounded – in
the kitchen that night with Bobby. He was trying to show
the emptiness of violence, no matter what its motivation.
Q: How do you rate Emilio as a director?
A: He’s the most compassionate man… and he
loves actors and loves making movies. He is so respectful
of actors. If you’ve never been on the set with him
before, you would be astonished at how kind and courteous
he is to everyone. He says, ‘Action, please!, ‘Cut,
please!’, ‘Thank you, everyone!’ But he
has an instinct that is very precise, and you may disagree
with him, but it’s always with great humour. He listens
to everyone, whatever suggestions you might have. But he’s
also very vulnerable as a man and he’s very sensitive
to everyone’s feelings. He was really astonishing,
because he was working with some pretty powerful names. It
was remarkable how they listened to him and how they were
ruled by him; it was a mutual admiration society on that
set. I’d worked with him several times as an actor,
and once as a director before this. He directed a film with
Kathy Bates and I – we played his parents – in
The War at Home. He was playing a young Vietnam veteran who
was returning home very troubled to this family in Texas,
and I played his father, who didn’t have any understanding.
It was a very complex, emotional film. I remember going to
the set one day, and watching him give direction to Kathy
Bates, who is one of my favourite actors in the world. I
thought, ‘My God, she’s listening to him!’ So
I fell in line, whatever he said was fine. We had our differences
but they were not anything important or monumental. And they
were always done with great humour and compassion. He’s
a lot of fun to work with. It’s a joyful experience.
He never gets upset or uptight, and the crew adore him. He’s
always very respectful and bows to their needs first. He
realises the technical side has to be precise before the
actors can get through.
Q: Of course, you have played politicians
many times – most
famously in The West Wing. Have you ever considered going
into politics?
A: No, never. I don’t have the skill and I have no
interest. I have a great interest in the issues of our time.
I’ve been for a very long time involved in peace and
social justice issues, but I would never confine myself to
a position of politics. I think that’s the problem
in our country. We have enough politicians; we don’t
have any real leaders. For my own part, I’ve always
been happy as an actor, and very lucky to have made my living
at it – all my adult life. I would like to continue.
I have been invited to consider it and I made it very clear
from the beginning that I was not interested. You cannot
confuse celebrity with credibility. I have no credibility!
Besides, I couldn’t serve a constituency. I would have
to serve a cause. I would have to serve an ideal. I couldn’t
limit it to a constituency in order to get elected and serve
this block of people…it’s impossible for me.
So I would never be elected.
Q: Stranger things have happened…
A: I guess… not in my country!
Q: You were one of the first famous people to vocally oppose
the war in Iraq. Did this damage your career in any way?
A: Yes. I was very early opposed to
the invasions of Iraq. It drew a lot of flak and a lot
of criticism, and we expected it. Since 9/11, we have moved
from protection to paranoia almost overnight…and this very unpopular president
had suddenly become a very, very popular president. He had
great support across the demographic of Democrats and Republicans,
and so it was very, very tense. Very difficult. We knew the
truth of what was said at the time. Someone from the Middle
East said, ‘If you invade Iraq, you open the gates
of Hell, and you have to ready for it.’ And he never
understood that and he still doesn’t get it. The most
recent mid-term election where the people spoke, it was very
clear that Iraq was the main issue. They were fed up with
the lies, and the distortions of the truth, and the loss
of human life – not just American but Iraqi as well.
There was no more credibility for him. I think people said, ‘Enough!
We want some leadership. We’ll support you in your
effort to get out, and to solve the problem, but we’re
not going to support your ideas of war for its own sake.’ For
my own part, I’ve always felt that violence and war,
specifically, is a reflection of despair. I wonder if Mr.
Bush didn’t have the power, if he had no great military
power, to go in there, what would his solution be to deal
with Saddam?
Q: Does acting still give you the buzz it always has?
A: It does. Very much so. I always
knew, even as a child when I couldn’t verbalise it, or explain it…I
think all of us know something as children that is a deeply
personal kind of knowingness. I don’t think children
have the language or experience to explain it. For my own
part, I had this innate kind of knowledge and feeling about
myself. It was only when I started going to the movies as
a child, six-seven years old, that it began to dawn on me
that ‘I’m one of them – I can do that!’ Don’t
ask me why. It’s a great mystery. I knew it and I knew
that the only way I’d be happy was to do that and go
after that.
Q: I read that your parents were opposed to you acting.
Is that true?
A: My mother died when I was a boy but my dad was very much
against it. He wanted me to go to college and get an education
and I was determined that I would go to New York from high
school, which I did. But we had some serious disagreements
about it. Once he realised that I was serious, and I was
committed to doing it, then he blessed and supported me.
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