HORSEPLAY
On the set of 'Young Guns II,' it's all about the fast draws and fast jokes, wild rides and wild times. Boys, after all, will be boys.

Emilio Estevez in his tattered Billy the Kid duds, with long johns poking through the holes in his jeans, is bemoaning how difficult it is to recruit partners in crime in the New West. "It's so tough," he gripes for the cameras, "to find a new outfit."

Immediately, Christian Slater begins to cackle, spoiling the take. All heads turn. "I couldn't help it," Slater later confesses. "I couldn't get it out of my mind that Emilio was trying on different clothes to put together a new OUTFIT. What were the colors? Was he wearing a dress or what?" The language of the old westerns-OUTFIT being slang for gang-has obviously gone the way of the horse and buggy. And Slater, at 20, is about a century too young to know such definitions.

The incident is typical of the off-camera escapades on the Santa Fe, New Mexico, set of Young Guns II, the back-in-the-saddle continuation of the Billy the Kid saga. Like it's 1988 predecessor, Young Guns II is heavy on young, attractive male stars: Joining holdovers Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips are Slater (Heathers), William Petersen(Cousins), Alan Ruck(Ferris Bueller's Day Off) and 15-year-old Balthazar Getty(Lord of the Flies). But the producers insist that the first film was never intended as an alibi to costume Hollywood's young moussekteers in western wear. "We took a lot of heat," say Guns II executive producer John Fusco, who also wrote the screenplays for both movies. "There was this bulls--- about the Brat Pack on horseback, like, 'Let's do a western.' But the West was young, and Billy and the other Regulators were all 21 or younger."

The plot picks up a year after the original with the remains of Billy the Kid's desperadoes, or Regulators as they're called in the movie, scattered,. After they're reluctantly reunited in a New Mexico jail, they break out and continue their rampage across the South-west, pursued by Sheriff Pat Garrett's(William Petersen) posse.

In today's scene, the Regulators ride to the edge of the gentle slope, then halt their horses and gawk into the lenses. Though the wizardry of film spicing, it will seem to viewers that the gang is cornered on the cliff, with the posse behind them and a sheer drop below. From behind them, they hear Lou Diamond Phillips' charter screaming, "Assay, assay!" Phillips gallops past the Regulators and jumps with his pony down the slope. The rest of the outlaws follow his example, and then bruised at the bottom of the cliff, they ask Phillips what he said to his horse in Navajo to make it plunge. "It means," he moans, " 'Stop, stop!' "

While Guns II is tucking more punch lines among the chases and shoot-outs, the actors are engaging in unscripted hijinks of their own. There was the time, for instance, when Estevez planted a candy bar inside a bathtub that Sutherland sat in for a scene and then gleefully watched as Sutherland desperately tried to keep a straight face as it bobbed to the surface. The actors confess to sneaking into each other's trailers between takes to spread cellophane over their pardners' doorways and toilet seats. "I've never had this much fun on a set, says 27-year-old Estevez, grinning like a madman.

It's no wonder that this gang o'boys spend a good portion of their time playing games with one another - what else can they do, thrown together in the desert 24 hours a day? Still, the set hasn't been isolated. Estevez' father, Martin Sheen, brought a pigskin and started an impromptu football game, and brother Charlie Sheen visited for a few days, even though his character was gunned down by a bounty hunter in the first Guns.

"It's like you become lifelong saddle partners with the guys," says Phllips, 28. "I hadn't seen Charlie in a long time, and it was like he was back in the costume. You forget that there was one that preceded this, so to have Charlie here reminded us of all the work we'd done before. There was one scene where Emilio turned to me and his eyes just lit up and he went, "This is the resolution of something we did two years ago' and that made the scene make sense to us. I think that's one of the reasons we came back-because we thought we could make improvements."

Some cast members came to the set early, to get a jump on their outlaw skills, Slater, who had never straddled a horse, came to earn his saddle stripes. "You get pretty sore," says Slater, who plays Arkansas Dave, a new addition to the gang. "I was screaming and moaning. But I've gotten used to it. I'm starting to walk bowlegged." Phillips arrived early to brush up on the knife-throwing and trick mounts favored by his character, the Navajo outlaw Chavez. "It's really not that difficult once you've figured the trick out, which is not to land on your head, basically." he says. "But it all comes back to you. It's like falling off a horse-which I've done."

Indeed. A couple of weeks before the wrap, Phillips did a scene on horseback in which he raised his shackled hands above his head and Estevez fired a blank to shoot off the cuffs. The noise spooked the horse, causing Lou to be thrown to the ground and dragged, by a noose around his neck, through a wagon turned on it's side, a woodpile, a fence and a few bystanders. He suffered rope burns, cuts, bruises and a broken arm. While Phillips recovered, his limb in a sling, the cast sent him a list of everyone he defeated at pool, requesting rematches.

On another day, the production moves to the dusty main street of a western town, complete with false-fronted buildings held in place by stilts. In this scene, Sutherland is led in chains through town and tossed - "SPLAT!" says the script - into a pitt that serves as a jail. The first few times the 23-year-old actor is flung headfirst into the pit seem hitchless, but director Geoff Murphy wants to be sure. During the fifth take, a jet flies over and ruins the sound.

Out of camera range on the wooden sidewalk, Julia Roberts, Sutherland's real-life flame(and Flatliners costar), perches on a canvas chair, holding the Marlboros that Sutherland puffs between takes; occasionally she clicks a picture without looking through the viewfinder of her camera. After the sixth take, Kiefer gimps over to the director who concludes that the take is flawless, then adds, "If you're satisfied, Kiefer." Sutherland turns and swats dust from his costume. "I was happy after the first take," he says testily. At lunch, he holes up in his trailers with Roberts and summons the medic to treat his scrapes.

Toward the end of the day, Balthazar Getty, nicknamed "Balty," shoots his last scene before heading home. He and Estevez sit astride their horses in a dust storm simulated by a fan. They say their lines and wheel their steeds and stare a panic at the posse while the crew films close-ups. Then they dismount to record their lines, face to face, into a microphone. But every time it's Estevez' turn, Getty makes faces causing his costar to crack up.

It is this sort of behavior that the Regulators point as justification for their good-humored hazing of Getty, who has been terrorizing the set; pulling hair, hustling, the cast at pool, and generally acting his ages. It will be hard to top the pranks they have already pulled on him. Like the day when the Regulators, posed against the magnificent vistas of New Mexico while waiting for a camera setup, began to serenade Getty with a customized rendition of the Gilligan's Island theme. The first verse refers to Billy the Kid, and the second to Getty, who plays an orphaned sidekick named O'Folliard: "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale/Of a psycho-pistoleer/ That started out at Fort Sumter/ And ended up right here/ A Regulator named O' Folliard/ Somehow he got shot./ We all pretended we were sorry/ But really we were not."

Then there was the time when Estevez told Getty that the crowd of elderly men watching filming one day wanted the youngster's autograph. "I walk over there," recalls Getty, "and I say, I'm here!" and they don't know who the hell I am. I walk off and the whole crew's just busting up laughing. It's humiliating. But the real reason they're laughing is because I'm walking around with this big sticker that Emilio put on my back that says, "Don't hate me because I'm gay," as a joke.

But now, as the sunlight wanes on the old western town, the final surprise is about to be launched. An assistant director wraps Getty in a friendly half nelson as a precaution against his escape. The crew, the extras, the stand-ins, the publicists and the personal assistants close in, sneaking smiles at each other. "Balty's our first Regulator to leave," the A.D. says. "Let's give him a big Regulator send- off." The applause is enthusiastic. For a moment, Getty stares at his boots, embarrassed and blinking. Then, as the ovation continues, he lifts his head and nods in appreciation. He seems overwhelmed. A shy grin appears; perhaps, after all the practical jokes, he's passed his initiation into the gang. Behind the stilt-backed buildings of the fake town, Sutherland, Estevez, Roberts and others slink with their hands full. Suddenly, they ambush Getty from behind and smother him head to spurs, with whipped cream pies. They splatter pies on his face, they press pies against the back of his head, they lather his chest and arms and legs. In a few seconds it is over; then the actors scatter laughing. Getty stands, silent and bewildered. Maybe it's gone too far, and nobody is applauding.

But then Getty sprints after the Regulators, his fists clenched, and it looks as though he might throw a punch. But no: Dripping whipped topping, he corners those he can catch-first a giggling Roberts, then Sutherland and Estevez and insists on hugging them good-bye, staining their expensive jeans and coats with cream. A good outfit, after all, is tough to find.


Article by Richard Lalich. Typed by Amy for Presenting...Emilio.