MIGHTY EMILIO

Emilio Estevez and the Mighty Ducks


It's mighty hard being a Mighty Duck. Emilio Estevez, who plays Coach Bombay in D2: The Mighty Ducks Are Back!, had to go through two weeks of hockey training camp before filming began. But that was nothing compared to the pain he was in when he called us. He told us he's having dental work done (and no, he didn't get hit in the teeth with a puck!). He also told us about hitting the slopes with his wife, singer Paula Abdul, and the perils of learning to ice skate.

Q: Did you know how to ice skate before you made The Mighty Ducks?
A: I had no idea. I secretly hired a private tutor to teach me because I told the director I could skate. Plus, I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of the kids.

Q: What's the hardest part of playing a hockey coach? Did you have to learn all the rules?
A: I had only been to two hockey games before the movie, so I went to more games and watched tapes. Jack White [the movie's hockey trainer] was on the set every day. I learned a lot from him, like the way he dealt with the kids and the coach lingo.

Q: When you made the first movie, did you have any idea that two years later a real NHL team would be created and named The Mighty Ducks?
A: Yeah, I knew from the beginning. (laughs) Nah, I had no idea!

Q: Have you been to a Ducks game yet?
A: Yeah, I was at the opening game. Before the game, I presented the Ducks' coach, Ron Wilson, with a "Coach Bombay" jacket and he gave me a real Ducks jersey with my name on it. That's a special piece of memorabilia to me.

Q: We heard Wayne Gretzky makes an appearance in D2: The Mighty Ducks Are Back!
A: Yeah, it was great! My two kids were on the set that day and were real excited to meet him. We took a lot of pictures and they got autographs.

Q: So your kids like hockey?
A: They love it! They play in a league now. Once a week they get all padded up and have fun.

Q: How did you get into snowboarding?
A: I saw some kids doing it on television and said, "I can do that." I skateboarded and surfed when I was younger, so it wasn't that hard to pick up.

Q: Have you ever been hurt?
A: Yeah, I messed up my ankle but I'm still going.

Q: Do your kids or Paula snowboard?
A: My kids love it! It's their first year, too, and it's Paula's first year skiing so we can all go on the same runs.

Q: One last thing--was it embarrassing when you had to "quack" for the first time?
A: Totally embarrassing! I told the director, "This is never going to work!" and that it was the stupidest thing I'd ever been asked to do in a movie.

Q: But now they're quacking at NHL games....
A: Yeah, shows you how much I know!


EMILIO RATES THE DUCKS

We asked Emilio to give us a scouting report on the kids in D2: The Mighty Ducks Are Back!:

Most likely to rip a hole in the net: Fulton
Most likely to miss a goal: Charlie
Best sharpshooter: Jesse
Most likely to get thrown in the penalty box: Portman
Fastest skater: Miguel
Scariest skater: Goldberg


Article written by Kim Lockhart. Typed by Briana for Presenting...Emilio


D.A.'S MIGHTY DUCKY DINNER


Some people dine on ducks. D.A. dines with ducks! We accepted a very informal invitation to a duck dinner. Mighty Ducks, that is. Joining us were four of the kids who appeared in Mighty Ducks and have migrated back to be in the sequel, D2: The Mighty Ducks Are Back!: Garette Ratliff Henson (who plays Guy), his brother, Elden Ryan Ratliff (Fulton), Brandon Adams (Jesse), and Marguerite Moreau (Connie). Turns out they scarf down the typical teenage meal: steak and fries, pastrami on rye, BLTs.

The ducks definitely had distinct personalities. Quiet Garette, 14, smiled a lot. Super-friendly Marguerite, 17, told great stories. Brandon, 16, goofed off and made jokes. But the center of attention was Elden, 16, who has taken the word "dude" and made it his own.

D.A.: What did you do for fun while filming in Minnesota?
Marguerite: We went jet skiing. It was really neat except for the mosquitoes. We had to bug-bomb every place we filmed. >Brandon: The worst thing was when we had to get into this nasty, nasty, nasty water for this scene where we drive a golf cart into the lake! >Elden: No, the worst was the taxi drivers. They try to take you around the long way. I'm like, "Dude, it's right over there." >Brandon: And the drivers look at us cuz we're kids, and they say, "You guys really have money?" >Elden: And they say, "Let me see it."

D.A.: Tell us about D2 training camp.
Marguerite: In the sequel we go to the Junior Olympics, so we had to look like we played on an international level. We had to train three hours in the morning, two hours in the afternoon. >Elden: We [did an exercise drill where we] sat on buckets and skated... Brandon: ...and chased each other. >Marguerite: And hit each other with pucks. >Elden: Then me, Brandon and Garette got this idea to kick out the buckets from underneath everyone. Emilio would leave when the buckets drill came. We couldn't.

D.A.: We know you guys played pranks....
.Brandon: It was us against the skating doubles [kids who stand in for us]. We'd throw shaving cream on them when they were sleeping. >Garette: Emilio put shaving cream on my face one time when I was asleep! >Elden: And he took a picture of it.

D.A.: So, Emilio's cool?
Elden: Oh, yeah, dude, he took 15 of us out to the movies. >Marguerite: And he took us to the Malibu Grand Prix [mini race car track]. >Elden: He bought out the place, dude! One hundred credits on all the video games. We could play all night long.

D.A.: Did your doubles look like you?
Elden: Dude, my double looked nothing like me! One double was a foot taller than me, one was a lot shorter, one had red hair. >Garette: I had a new double every week! Some guy would be Brandon's double, then he'd become my double. Or Marguerite's double one day would be my double the next day!

D.A.: What famous people did you get to meet?


D.A.: What was it like being the very first hockey team to skate on The Pond, the arena of The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim?
Garette: We weren't the first, the doubles were! >Brandon: We only got to play one time on The Pond. >Marguerite: One day 17,000 extras were cheering for us. All of us were in awe!

D.A.: What do you think about your movie inspiring the creation of an NHL team?
Brandon: It's cool, but we don't even get season tickets!

D.A. Any new kids in D2 we should watch out for?
Elden: Yeah, Ty O'Neal who plays Dwayne! We called him Cowboy! He's a real cowboy! >Marguerite: He's got the tight jeans, the big belt buckle, the hat. >Elden: This guy was an A-1 man. He put A-1 sauce on everything! All over his food, eggs, fries, steaks, chicken, everything. >Marguerite: There's a scene where Cowboy has to rope us, and he got us all on the first try! >Brandon: And we all started saying "y'all." >Elden: And he started saying "dude." He called me up the weekend after filming wrapped and he said, "My friends are ready to kill me--they say I say 'dude' way too many times!"


Instead of dessert, we roasted a duck! We asked the kids to rate Emilio. As we called out the categories, they laughed and argued and finally agreed on how many ducks Emilio deserved (one duck is the worst, four ducks is the best):
Skating: 1
>>Shooting the puck: 2
>>Telling jokes: 4
>>Quacking: 3.5
>>Overall coolness factor: 4


Article by Kim Lockhart and Liz Smith. Typed by Briana for Presenting...Emilio