EDUCATING EMILIO

By Michael Kaplan

EDUCATING AFTER HIS 80s HEYDAY AS BRAT PACK RINGLEADER, EMILIO ESTEVEZ DID SOME SERIOUS REEVALUATING. THE 90s FIND HIM CALMED DOWN, COOLED OUT AND COUNTING HIS BLESSINGS - AMONG THEM, HIS TWO KIDS AND HIS NEW MOVIE, 'FREEJACK'

"I won't stand for it! I just won't stand for it!!" huffs Emilio Estevez, traces of petulance permeating his voice. Surrounded by mounted strobe lights in a midtown Manhattan photography studio, he pumps his compact torso up a notch, jerks his head down, then swings it back in a self-conscious sweep, as he adds, "I won't have journalists here while I'm being photographed." It gets quiet for a second; the star eyes the reporter and seems primed to toss a fit. Suddenly his expression does a stunning 180-degree turn, his mouth breaking into a smile that says just kidding. "Of course you're welcome here," Estevez exclaims in a chummy tone. "Take your coat off. Watch all you want."

The put-on says a lot about Emilio Estevez - twenty-nine-year old son of a famous actor (Martin Sheen), brother of another (Charlie Sheen), ex-member of the notorious Brat Pack, struggling director, star of the just-released Freejack (in which he's billed above Mick Jagger and Anthony Hopkins). In an industry where people get prickly about the slightest media intrusions, Estevez can joke about them. He has the unpretentious attitude of a secure grown-up who has matured in Hollywood's fast lane. In short, Emilio Estevez may be the industry's least likely mensch.

He has given up carousing and commutes to work from the house he built near outer Zuma Beach. When he discusses his fantasy future, it's stable and family oriented. Estevez has even taken an active interest in the two children he had out of wedlock with model Carey Salley - and for the first time, he's willing to publicly acknowledge them. All this from a guy who once bragged, "I don't eat at Fatburgers. But I've scarfed some furburgers."

Today, he says, it's the work that gets him off. "I've been in this business for eleven years, and that's long enough to see a lot of young actors come and go," Estevez explains, as a stylist swoops in to primp his coif. "Some of these guys are on the cover of every magazine for a year, then they're gone. I saw a lot of my peers getting caught up in the nightlife, and I decided that it wasn't what I wanted. Preserving some anonymity and not hanging my dirty laundry out there for everybody to scrutinize will contribute to my being in this business for the long haul."

Estevez's career, unlike those of his supernova peers (including Rob Lowe, Judd Nelson and Timothy Hutton), has plodded along on a reasonably steady course. Weathering the ups and downs - typified by successful films such as Repo Man, The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Young Guns I and II, and Stakeout - Estevez has persevered without the benefit of a oneshot, high-profile vehicle like Risky Business or Wall Street.

One person who believes that Estevez deserves such an opportunity is David Nicksay, the executive producer of both Young Guns II and Freejack. During the shooting of the former, he implored the actor to read the script for the latter. "When I saw Emilio off screen, I noticed that he possessed a hidden well of action and danger that had not yet been platformed in a film," says Nicksay. "He's got a lot of untapped intensity behind those basic blue eyes."

With the release of Freejack - a cyberpunk thriller that has Estevez's character kidnapped into the future (by time-traveling bounty hunter Mick Jagger), where a rich, old man (Anthony Hopkins) awaits a new body in which to implant his mind - the actor hopes to finally make the leap to full-fledged, adult leading man. "This is a great opportunity for me to show that I can carry a movie without having any of my buddies appearing alongside me," he says. "Besides that, the character, this race-car driver named Alex Furlong, interests me because he's so fearless. I've been going through certain awakenings in my own life - trying to overcome personal fears by skydiving and kayaking - so I like the idea of playing a guy who's ballsy and brave. He's something of an antihero, but he's much more of a hero than anybody I've ever played in the past."

Because special effects were later added to Free jack, the filming process (known as "blue screen") required the actors to regularly react to things that had not yet been created. This led to a certain amount of tension on the set, but Rene Russo (who plays Estevez's girlfriend) says her leading man's sense of humor kept up morale. "After a certain point, we'd get so overtired that we became real silly," recalls Russo. "When cameras were rolling, though, Emilio remained intensely focused, he never yelled or got cranky - even when we were putting in fourteen-hour days."

Emilio Estevez wants french fries. The photo shoot is over, he's in his room at the Plaza - he's been in Manhattan all week, awaiting the opening of The Crucible, which stars his father -- and the telephone is dead. Gamely, he scrambles under the night table and begins fiddling with the electrical cords, plugging and unplugging everything in sight until he gets a dial tone.

After room-service delivers his grease feast - "These have got to be the worst things in the world for you," Estevez says, popping a ketchup-drenched spud into his mouth, "but I don't eat meat, so I guess it's okay" - he sits down on one of the room's high-back chairs, sips from a bottle of Evian, and offers to share what he classifies as the most embarrassing moment of his life.

It took place in the late Sixties, when his father was in Mexico shooting Catch-22. The family had been flown out from New York City (where they lived until Emilio was six), and young Estevez found himself in the enviable position of breakfasting a table away from his all-time hero, Art Garfunkel. "I idolized Art Garfunkel," he emphatically states, "and actually envisioned myself being him. So I couldn't believe my good fortune. "Well, my little sister [Renee] started eating butter right out of a bowl. My mother told her not to eat it because she was going to get sick. Seconds later, Renee looked up and lost it all over the table. I smelled her vomit and had a violent reaction to it." Estevez pauses dramatically. "I puked on the floor right next to where Art Garfunkel was eating. He looked up at me and had a really disgusted expression on his face. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. We walked out of the restaurant leaving behind a trail of vomit." Telling the story cracks Estevez up, and, upon catching his breath, he adds that his father did introduce him to Garfunkel later, but "I don't think he remembered me as the kid who nearly puked on him."

While that may have been Estevez's first show business brush with embarrassment due (directly or not) to overindulgence on some level, it certainly would not be his last.

In the mid-Eighties, when he and his contemporaries were monikered with the reviled "Brat Pack" handle, he suddenly discovered the cost of fame. After fathering two children, being depicted in magazine profiles as a lager lout of a screen stud, and taking part in some well-publicized, ill-fated romances (one with Demi Moore, the other with makeup artist Sheryl Berkoff, who wound up marrying his former night-crawling buddy Rob Lowe), he seemed destined to become one of those Hollywood burnouts who arc famous for having been momentarily famous.

It wasn't how Estevez. wanted to be remembered, so he strategically withdrew from the scene and thought things through. "I stayed in a lot, I kept to myself, I became careful about how I handled the media. I haven't been in a high-profile relationship for years," he says. "I retreated outside of L.A. I'm still in the 213 area code, but I'm way out there."

One thing that Estevez realized was that he wanted to get more involved in the making of movies. After all, he was informally introduced to the cinematic process while attending junior high in Santa Monica and shooting Super 8 films with his brother Charlie and friend Sean Penn. The dream of scripting, directing and starring in movies became a reality when Estevez helmed Wisdom (1986) and Men at Work (1990).

Both films were critical and commercial disasters and the negative response took a toll on the tyro auteur. "After Wisdom's release, I was devastated," he says quietly. "If I'm watching TV now and the movie comes on, the first thing I do is change the channel to CNN, although there are somie scenes that I would still direct the same way. My father saw how upset I was over the bad reviews, and he suggested that I shouldn't read them, that I shouldn't give the reviewers more power than they have."

Estevez perks up as he adds, "With Men at Work, I didn't. And you know what? I now realize that critics opinions don't mean s--- to me. I'll going to direct more movies, I'm going to act in more movies, and there's nothing they can do to stop me."

Even at its most cocksure, Estevez's attitude barely hints at the egotistical bombast that accompanied his entrance into the movie business, and part of his current (relative) humility doubtlessly stems from his break with the brats. While Estevez admits that they still stay in touch, their days of public partying are over - "The stakes have changed," he says dismissively--and the parameters of the friendships have been redefined.

In fact, a nail in that particular coffin might well have been Rob Lowe's decision to suddenly marry Sheryl Berkoff, Estcvcz's former squeeze. "There's an unwritten rule between guys who are friends," he says reflectively. "You don't go out with your buddy's ex-girlfriend. And you certainly don't marry her. Rob broke that rule, and he called me at 3:00 on a Saturday morning to invite the to the wedding two days later."

Did he go? "Of course I went. I wouldn't have missed it for the world." Estevez's lips form a benign, tight-lipped smile. "See, Rob is the kind of guy who constantly crosses lines that other people respect, but he's got such a tremendous heart that he somehow gets away with it. Rob is really a great guy. He could have married my sister and it would have been okay." Estevez's voice halts before he shifts into a Wayne's World accent and concludes, "Maybe. Not!"

Now that the gang has broken Lip and Estevez's sojourns to the Hard Rock Cafe are history, what does he do for fun when he's not working? "I have two kids," he says, referring to Taylor, 7, and Palonia, 5. "I'm learning to be a father. Do you want to see my children?"

With paternal pride, Estevcz fishes out his wallet and produces a pair of snapshots. "Every morning, when I'm in town, I chauffear them to school at 7:00. The house that I have is really geared around my children, with a bedroom and a playroom for them, so that they can stay over on weekends."

While Estevez admits that he made mistakes along the way and hasn't always been a model father -- "I was there physically but not Mentally" -- he's doing what he can to recover lost time The change, he says, came as an epiphany when he realized that being a father is at least as important as being a movie star. As for his contemporaries and the forgotten offspring that they may have scattered around Southern California, Estevez expresses pity. "You turn your back on your kids, he says, and eventually you're going to regret it. Look into your child's eyes, and it's instantly evident the child needs you."

He goes on to express a desire to eventually marry (he prefers that she not be in showbiz) and have more kids. Then, a very grown-up Emilio Estevez turns back to his children's photos and speaks without looking up. "In the end, all that matters is that you love and are loved by the people you choose to surround yourself with."


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