The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, The Mighty Ducks
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During much of the 1980s, films were dominated by a group of youngsters that was known as “The Brat Pack.” Among them was Emilio Estevez, who didn’t really carry the name recognition, but does find himself from a famous family. Now in his late 50s, Estevez is far removed from playing high schoolers, but is still very much involved in the business. He’s been behind the camera more frequently in recent years, establishing a career as a director.
Estevez is, of course, the song of actors Martin and Janet Sheen. Martin was born with the last name Estevez, but had it changed to Sheen on a professional basis. Along with three other siblings, including future acting star Charlie Sheen, he developed an interest in acting. Estevez was born on May 12, 1962 in New York City, but spent much of his childhood in Southern California with his father working in Hollywood.
During his high school years, Estevez showed a lot of potential as an actor. He was earning rave reviews on stage and was even writing his own work. Because of this, Estevez had a choice of attending college or going into acting full-time. Obviously, he’d choose the latter and never look back.
“I started out as a storyteller,” Estevez said of his younger years. “When I was seven years old I submitted a story to NBC-Universal. It was a movie-of-the week I had handwritten in pencil. It was rejected, of course, which it should have been, because it was awful. Then in the sixth grade I wrote a play about George Washington and the school put in on for Washington’s Birthday. I played the narrator.”
“When I was at Santa Monica High School, I couldn’t get cast in any of the school productions so I thought the hell with it, I’m going to write my own play, which I co-wrote with my friend Lee Arenberg,” he continued. “So in terms of ambition and drive, that has a different meaning for me. It’s always been about the work and that’s something I learned from my father. The money will come, although I’m still waiting for that, and the stardom will come. All if it will come if you dig in and just do the work.”
In 1973, Estevez appeared on screen for the first time as an extra in the film “Badlands” that starred his father. For the rest of the decade, he had gotten away from acting save for another small role with his father in “Apocalypse Now”, but the scene had been cut. His true debut came in 1980 when Estevez guest starred on an episode of the series “Insight”.
Over the course of the next couple of years, Estevez added a handful of TV appearances that included a TV film, but it was his film career that really started to take off. Estevez landed his first credited film role in 1982’s “Tex” starring Matt Dillon and the following year had his breakthrough role in “The Outsiders”.
Estevez then became known as a member of “The Brat Pack” and was appearing in some very memorable films. The middle of the 1980s saw hits like “The Breakfast Club”, as well as “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Repo Man”. Estevez started to write movies around this time, as well, penning both “That Was Then…This Is Now” and “Wisdom”, which he also directed.
He didn’t think that the early works that he did from behind the camera were all that great, though. “The first couple of pictures I wrote and directed were dreadful,” Estevez admitted. “Because I was dealing in worlds that were not familiar to me, and writing about fantasy. They were just not anything I was really connected to.”
Estevez wrapped up the 1980s with a pair of “Young Guns” movies in which he played Billy the Kid, then starred alongside his brother in the Estevez-directed film “Men At Work”. During the rest of the 1990s, Estevez hadn’t appeared much on television outside of a couple of TV movies. He had more feature films such as “Freejack” and “Loaded Weapon 1”, but the focal point of the decade was hockey-related. Estevez starred as coach Gordon Bombay in all three of the “Mighty Ducks” films from the 1990s, even spawning an NHL franchise of the same name.
Other late 1990s films for Estevez included “The War at Home”, “Mission: Impossible” and “Late Last Night”. When the new millennium started, Estevez continued to add more directing credits with films such as “Bobby”, “Culture Clash in AmeriCCa” and “The Way”. More recently, Estevez directed “The Public” that was released in 2018. Some of his recent TV directing credits also include episodes of shows such as “CSI: NY”, “Criminal Minds” and “Numb3rs”, while adding an acting credit in 2008 on “Two and a Half Men”.
The priorities for Estevez during his career have certainly changed. It’s not all about being the A-list talent, anymore. “I think I’ve matured to a great extent,” he said. “I think that I want different things now. That it’s not about the celebrity status that you receive because you’re doing the next hot movie. It’s about doing good work.”
Many of his more recent films as a director have dealt with heavier issues compared to some of the comedies that he had worked on before. That doesn’t mean there isn’t humor involved, however. “I feel the humor was important to humanize the characters,” Estevez said of his films. “Because again, we’re all, nobody wants to live pain-free or trauma-free. We all carry a certain amount of trauma with us. It’s really a matter of degrees and how people deal with it. Howe they’re coping with it.”
There are other things that Estevez wants to do, as well. “There is a part of me that still wants to go out and grab a backpack and unplug,” he said. “Not take a cellphone or even a camera and just get out there and experience the world and travel. I have yet to do that, but someday I hope.”
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