On Friday, actors Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez visited Georgetown to discuss their upcoming film The Way, a story about a man traveling the Camino de Santiago, a Christian pilgrimage in Spain. Interview transcribed by Leigh Finnegan.
Did you decide to come to Georgetown because it’s been too long since St. Elmo’s Fire?
Estevez: I haven’t been here since then! We got in so early this morning I haven’t gotten a chance to look [around].
What interested you so much in this particular pilgrimage?
Sheen: [My father] was raised in an area near Tui, which is not far from Santiago, so I had a lifelong connection to it … When I was doing The West Wing I really decided that I would take a summer and do it. And in the summer of ‘03 I only had about six to eight weeks. It was not enough time by the time I got there and got organized. I was with [Estevez’s] son, Taylor, who was 19 at the time … [and] Taylor met his future wife at a refugio on the Camino, and he lives there now. And he was very instrumental in inspiring this work, but it just ignited a very energetic focus in my life that this was an important event to do this, for me, personally. And I fell in love with the Camino, and when I came home I started telling [Eztevez] about all these miracles that had happened in a very short time, not the least of which was his son. And so gradually Emilio took up this interest and he took it to another level and began to fashion a scenario. We were talking about doing a documentary at first.
Estevez: [But then] we settled on the dramatic narrative that this was a father/son story, and the father would learn about the son more so in death than he ever did in life.
Sheen: The father is very conservative. He’s a doctor, he’s an ophthalmologist, a widower. It’s his only son, an anthropologist, who leaves Berkeley shortly before he gets his Ph. D. to go into the world and to study anthropology firsthand. And in the process—should I tell the story? I don’t want to spoil the film. But anyway, he ends up on the Camino.
Did you feel some kind of interior transformation after the film?
Sheen: Well working with [Estevez] is an interior transformation! He’ll take you places … He specifically wrote this part for me, but it was not really about me. He had to keep reminding me how conservative the character was. So I’d start getting friendly with the other pilgrims, or I’d start speaking a little Spanish, or acting too gregarious, and he’d have to stop me.
Estevez: I’d say, “No, no, that’s Martin, that’s not Don.”
Sheen: So he would remind me, “You voted for George Bush! Twice!”
Estevez: I actually said you voted for Nixon.
Sheen: What? Oh my god, it gets worse. I didn’t think it could get any worse.
And how was your journey from The West Wing to Santiago?
Sheen: That’s another pilgrimage. I loved doing The West Wing. That was a great time in my life, and for all of us involved it was very special. They come along once in your life.
Estevez: You’re still everybody’s favorite president.
Sheen: Well, that just shows you how messed up the country is.
great read :) but why was estevez always bracketed? what was his father calling him???