Emilio Estevez: Life as a Hollywood Agenda Bender


Q: Are you a vegetarian?
A: I eat fish, break their little necks.

Q: In Freejack you are hunted by Mick Jagger. Do his lips have a life of their own?
A: You know, they came up with a line for me: "Let's show this big-lipped bastard!" And I said to the producers, "You think this is a funny line, but I am not going to insult a physical characteristic of Mick Jagger because I have too much respect for him." I got a lot of raised eyebrows, but I said no way. So I'm using this story... to tell you to fuck off.

Q: In the film your body is hijacked. Whose body or mind would you like to inhabit?
A: If I answer that does it mean I'm not happy with my own? I love Robert Bly. I did his seminar with my father [Martin Sheen] and my brother Ramon. We separated into three groups. I chose the black group, a group of mourning. I felt I needed to be protected.

Q: What did you learn?
A: That we are essentially little boys trapped in men's bodies. Men have to get in touch with their wealth of emotions, because, man, you could stay locked up for years. I think those are the things that kill us. That's how I believe cancers are created.

Q: Are you much of a wild man?
A: I had a fight in junior high. This guy called me Mellow. I kicked his ass. But we ended up friends.

Q: And that boy is now called Sean Penn?
A: No. I grew up with Sean. I love him. I don't mean any disrespect, but if you're interested in fighters, you may wanna question him.

Q: Would you take a bullet for a stranger?
A: It depends. If a guy dives off a bridge, his car is sinking, would I dive in after him? Probably.

Q: A guy comes in a deli waving a gun?
A: If I felt he was gonna start shooting everybody regardless, just poppin' shots, it would be better to do something than nothing.

Q: What personal sacrifices would you make to save the planet?
A: Kiefer Sutherland and I thought about fasting until our deaths unless all nuclear weapons were dismantled. We talked about it and wondered if it would really serve the cause.

Q: You've got two kids?
A: A son who's seven and a daughter who's five. I had my son when I was twenty-two with my first love. We were gonna get married and she had this baby and I panicked. I wanted to be a movie star and do all the things I thought movie stars should do. That's when Demi Moore and I got together. But I was overcome with guilt, so I went back to this woman and had another baby and thought, Wow, this is way too much for me -- I'm back here for all the wrong reasons. And I split again. Up until recently it was very difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that I had kids.

Q: Were you raised religiously?
A: No, much to the dismay of my father; he wanted to raise us as strict Catholics. My mother was Southern Baptist and her father a Russian Jew, so she really didn't know how to raise us, but she knew she didn't want us to be raised as Catholics. Even though we went to Our Lady of Malibu.

Q: Have you ever been in therapy?
A: No. I tried. I had a woman in my life who believed very strongly in therapy. I felt like I was with Siskel and Ebert. They gave the relationship a thumbs down! So I said, "Fuck you!"

Q: Are you pretentious in any way?
A: Because I have a junior suite at the Plaza? I can't afford a real suite. You know, I want to put some money away for my kids for school. My folks didn't do that for us. They sent us to public schools, and that's why I can't put two sentences together without saying "um" or "y'know" in between, so now you're gonna be, um, really aware of it, y'know?

Q: You wrote and directed Men At Work, which got panned.
A: Does that mean I'm supposed to stop? People come up to me on the street and say, "Men At Work is the funniest movie I ever saw in my life." But, you know, I do have to question how many movies these people have seen.

Q: Have you ever made love to an actress and thought, One of us is acting?
A: I've never suspected an actress of acting in the rack. That would be "rackting." As for myself: innocent of all charges.

Q: What objects in your place would be most offensive to a woman?
A: Well, I have a lot of paintings of naked women, but only from the back, usually. You can't really see their faces. I don't like my art to look back at me. I also have an Ed Rucsha; it says "99 percent angel and 1 percent devil." It's in the hallway leading into the bedroom.

Q: What's on your sound system lately?
A: Peter Gabriel's The Last Temptation of Christ soundtrack. It's all Middle Eastern sounds. Phenomenal. In my car I listen to books on tape, history lessons, vocabulary enhancers.

Q: Impress me with vocabulary you've learned while driving.
A: Hey, buddy, move your fucking car.

Q: What's the sexiest woman's garment?
A: Anything from Victoria's Secret. Why don't those women pick up the phone and call? I'm a single guy, I live in a big house with my dog on the beach, in California. I got the kids on the weekends but, hey, it's not a major imposition.

Q: Who would you choose for a blind date: a dominatrix or a sex slave?
A: [laughs] Someone who loves to beat me but begs to be forgiven.

Q: What do you notice first about a woman?
A: Her face. Then her backyard.

Q: Are you an Estevez or a Sheen?
A: I am a Gallego. From Ga-leeth-i-a [Galicia]. Which is in Spain. And I am an aestheticist in pronunciation. Gringos say ES-te-vez. We say e-STEV-ez. You failed today's Spanish lesson. Go sit in the corner with a dunce cap.

Q: What's your favorite Emilio rumor?
A: That in Men At Work I was encouraged to wear high heels or lifts because of how much taller Charlie is than me, and that I refused because I said I would look like Prince.

Q: I've heard better rumors than that.
A: If you got 'em, man, lay 'em on me.

Q: You lost your virginity in a brothel your father took you to.
A: That's insane. I was not taken there by my father. The truth is I did lose my virginity in a brothel in the Philippines. I was fourteen and an extra on Apocalypse Now, and one night everything was going wrong. So this guy and I went to a bar and had a few and went to a whorehouse. But I actually had sex for the first time when I was twelve. The other rumor?

Q: You were on a date with Susanna Hoffs. Demi came in and threw the wedding dress that she bought to get married to you in your face.
A: Not true. We had been broken up for over five months at the time. It's a good story though. Demi and I are past all the shit. She's wonderful, very sweet. Of course, none of this will get printed. Nobody likes to hear the good things.

Q: Would you go public if you had HIV?
A: I don't know. I read something interesting about Brad Davis, who just passed from AIDS. There were other people, more famous than Brad, who were secretly telephoning him on how to get help. I wonder who they are, and if they aren't doing a disservice to the industry and to young people by not stepping forward. But I also wonder if I would have the courage.

Q: You have a minute of live airtime on world simulcast. What will you say?
A: I think I'd say "use a condom" and put it on a tape loop. A scratch mix: "U-u-u-use-a-use-a-use-use-a-a-con-con-condom."

Q: What is the greatest sin?
A: Ignorance. And arrogance. Arrogance is ignorance matured.


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