FACES OF THE YEAR 1985: EMILIO ESTEVEZ


`Washed up at twenty-one is Hollywood’s newest tragic syndrome. Scores of gang movies are produced each year; each starring new groups of fresh faces repeating stale jokes. The youthful cast imagine themselves driving Mercedes and bathing in asses` milk forever. But all too soon they are over the hill. One or two close-ups, two or three immersions in shaving cream, three or four screen credits, and it’s goodbye making movies, hello selling stereos. Only the lucky, the talented and the clever endure.

Emilio Estevez had the luck to be born Martin Sheen’s son (the eldest of three), the talent to survive Francis Ford Coppola`s The Outsiders (“What remains in the picture of my performance, I’m pleased with”) and the cleverness to write and produce a movie for himself (That Was Then, This Is Now). Estevez, twenty-two could well become the biggest Hollywood star whose name ends with a `z` since Desi Arnaz.

Unlike most ethnically surnamed performers, Estevez chose his less mainstream label over his fathers name Sheen. Actually, Estevez is his father’s real name, so the son’s choice was a rebuke as well as a declaration of independence. “Every time my name appears without his, I’m better off, “ he says in the firm, positive manner so reminiscent of his father. “I like my old man a lot, and I’m not going to work with him again for a long time. We work well together. He played my father in a TV movie, In The Custody of Strangers, and it was fine. There have never been any problems between us, apart from that fight we had in the Philippines on the set of Apocalypse Now which Marlon Brando broke up and which I don’t want to talk about. I just don’t want the association between Dad’s name and mine to be heavy. When I was starting out, every time my name was in print, so were his credits. I wanted to avoid that by keeping the Estevez name. `Emilio Estevez` was a hurdle I put up for myself, and I got over it and kept on running.”

Estevez can now rest on his own laurels. He achieved product identification unaided as one of The Breakfast Club, playing a tongue-tied wrestler who learns to loosen up. In Repo Man he was a nice suburban punk whose car thieving ways land him in deep radioactive trouble. In St Elmo`s Fire he plays a law student with a dangerous romantic obsession. And he plays the villain in his own production of That Was Then, This Is Now. One of Estevez` strengths is that he is a hard actor to pigeonhole. Unlike the instantly castable here-today-gone-tomorrows, he doesn’t semaphore one-word characteristics off the screen. Without being a chameleon-like character actor, he has proved himself capable of coming out of many different boxes.

One consistent Estevez quality is reserve. His characters seem to be trying to act older than they are. They’re quiet, but they’re quick learners. In Repo Man, he listens agog as Harry Dean Stanton tells him how to steal cars legally, and soon he’s in there hot-wiring with the best if them. In The Breakfast Club his strong silence throughout the first half of the movie turns out to be a pose covering up great fear. Estevez creates good moments for himself because his characters don’t explain themselves with a glance. The long smoulder sets up effective change-of-gear scenes. It’s a talent that most of the great American dramatic stars have had. Or maybe in Estevez` case, it’s cleverness. “There never was any doubt in my mind what I was going to do when I was young, I knew I was going to be like my Daddy. Whenever I said that it was usually dismissed as kids talk. I got older and then the rest of the world found out what I`d known all along.”

Estevez has already worked out a programme for avoiding premature departure from the scene. “The idea is never to think you’re more important or more interesting than the guy who pushes the camera dolly. If you get lost in the image of yourself, you become how other people see you and that’s when you fall prey to the drugs, the booze, the women and the I-wonder-what-happened-to-what`s-his-name.”

When he was eighteen Estevez read SE Hinton`s That Was Then, This Is Now and wrote the first of many drafts of his screenplay. “It didn’t seem like anything I couldn’t do. I found out though, that writing is a lonely job, unless you’re a drinker, in which case you always have a friend within reach.” Estevez had acquired the rights to the book “through my Dad’s production company. I knew Susie Hinton wouldn’t be too hot to give her book to some kid. Having Dad’s name attached made it more legitimate, but beyond that he had nothing to do with it. He never even read the script - which was disheartening.” Trying to sell the project was even more disheartening, especially after the failure of Coppula`s Rumble Fish. Estevez` character is “a real villain, a kid with no conscience and no morals.” Eventually though, Estevez sold himself, the property and his screenplay to a group of investors in Minnesota, and the film was shot in the autumn of 1984. The project enabled Estevez to stand out from all the other camera fodder. “Actors are often thought of as talking props. Every time you break out of that mould, you strike fear in the hearts of those who hold the producers` jobs, and I don’t care. That just makes me stronger, because I plan on being more than a talking prop for the rest of my life.”

Originally written by Bart Mills and included in a British Virgin publication. Repo Man was also cited as a Film of the Year.

Article contributed by Carole Zorzo for Presenting..Emilio!!!