As a director, Emilio Estevez rarely shies away from filmmaking as being a family affair. Since his 1987 directorial debut Wisdom, the actor best known for his work in The Breakfast Club and The Mighty Ducks series of films, has included roles for either his brother, Charlie Sheen, or his father, Martin Sheen. However, his latest feature The Way (which finds its theatrical release in Toronto and Vancouver this weekend after screening at TIFF in 2010) might be the most personal expression of Emilio’s connection to family yet.
Not only is the film dedicated to his grandfather, but Estevez wrote the film’s lead character with his father in mind to star. Based in part on a combination of Jack Hitt’s book Off the Road and personal experience, The Way tells the story of a California optometrist (Sheen) who travels to France following the tragic death of his son (Estevez) while on a soul searching pilgrimage along the famed Camino de Santiago, a thousand year old, 500 mile walk through Europe to the Spanish coastline. Once there, the father sets out to finish the journey started by his son despite being completely unprepared for the road that lies ahead.
Estevez, Sheen, and the film’s producer (and family friend) David Alexanian sat down with Criticize This! in the midst of a North American bus tour to promote the film and talk about shooting on location, the spirituality of the journey, and what it’s like working with family.
Andrew Parker: You guys are going on a fifty day bus tour to promote the movie yourselves. Does this feel like a different sort of pilgrimage to take after making the film?
Martin Sheen: It is! We’ve been out since August 27 and I guess we’ve gone a little over ten thousand miles since then. It’s fitting for something that’s about one of the great Christian pilgrimages.
AP: Martin, You were raised Catholic and there is that bit of tension in the film between your characters religion and spirituality. What kind of challenges did you guys face when going into this project?
David Alexanian: Let me answer that one…
(everyone laughs)
MS: What’s the matter with you? Who is this guy? I don’t even really know him! He was our driver two days ago and now all of a sudden, he’s the producer? Quit making statements for crying out loud!
(laughs)
Emilio Estevez: I’d like to say that the proof is not just in the pudding, but the eating of the pudding, so when you see the film you have a pretty good take on the spiritual path that we’re all on. In terms of my spiritual path, I’ve not defined myself with any one faith or aligned myself with any one religion. I feel as much as he’d like me to become a Catholic… We we’re baptized Catholic, but not practising.
MS: You’ve gotta practice if you want to get it right. I keep telling you that.
EE: (laughs) So, uh… It made for some pretty lively conversations between us because I didn’t want to stop at every church and have the main character fall to his knees and weep every time.
DA: By the very nature of this film, it is a Christian pilgrimage. By the fact that we’re in Spain, you can’t point a camera in any direction and not get a church in frame. I said the faith and the organization of the Catholic church will be on display in the film, but it isn’t about that. It’s about the interior journey, and the best place to start was to talk about Martin being a lapsed Catholic.
MS: Yeah, absolutely. For this journey to work, he’s gotta be lapsed.
AP: Also, many people do this trip for non-religious reasons as well, as you show in the film. Do you think that helps to make your film more accessible?
EE: Yeah, totally. I mean, I missed my gap year. I went right from school directly into working. I never even had that fantasy year where I could just throw on a backpack and go somewhere to explore. I definitely put a little bit of that sense of adventure into this film.
AP: Martin, in the past you’ve talked a lot about reincarnation…
MS: Yeah, I’ve changed my mind about all that. (everyone laughs) Let me tell you, I’ve got a whole different theory about that. (laughs) You know, I don’t know… We don’t know what God is, do we. I mean, really? I don’t have a clue. I used to have great joy in my faith, but my faith demands a lot of activity, social justice, and thedrive to clothe the needy, feed the hungry, house the homeless, all those demands of the gospel are what my faith is about. But I’m always hesitant to define what this whole great mystery is. That’s the bottom line. Nobody knows what this is that we’re a part of.
AP: Do you think you are more in a state of grace now and removed a bit from the same stressed out Martin Sheen that had a heartattack on the set of Apocalypse Now?
MS: Do you mean who I am now? The OLD Martin Sheen? (laughs) Are you surprised I’m still here now and standing up? (laughs) I don’t know, man. I mean, we live a very public thing so our offences are out in the open. If you have access to old interviews where I talk about things like reincarnation, you have to wonder whose idea that was. I don’t know, man. I just love being alive every day. I give thanks and praise for the mystery and I believe that God is in everything around us. I believe thegenius of God is to dwell in the places where we would least likely look within our wretched selves, and that’s what makes us human and unique. It’s hard not to be compassionate. Compassionate is what I think we should all be and we should be experiences.
AP: Is it hard to work with family and to direct your dad?
EE: No, on the contrary. I live very close to my parents. I live right down the street. I’m definitely a mama’s boy, make no mistake. I’m on the phone with her every day and I see this guy almost every day. Either I’m over at his place or he’s over at mine. I adore them. They’re the best.
MS: I just can’t seem to shake him. (laughs)
EE: The film is really an extension of that. It’s got a very organic representation of that family tension that we experience. It celebrates faith, family, community, all thethings we have in our lives. I have a microfarm at home and when I pull out a bunch of carrots, I can’t wait to run down the street and share them with him, or theneighbours, or David.
DA: Yeah, I live in the neighbourhood, too. And I mean, this is a film made by a grandson and a son and dedicated to a grandfather, so I think Hollywood, sadly, does spend a lot of time making films they don’t necessarily know anything about, whereas this film is something I think they were almost entitled to make thanks to their Spanish ancestry, and because Emilio’s son and Martin’s grandson lives right on the Camino. They were very intimately involved. It’s like when Martin says that all art is either personal or impersonal, and if it’s impersonal who cares. Film is by and large an impersonal art form, and this is a very personal film. They were able to bring out each other’s best because of that unique relationship, and the viewer is going to benefit a lot from that.
EE: It’s a very intimate kind of experience. And if you notice, the film never tries to be hip, or cool, or edgy, because I’m none of those things. It’s like how David mentioned, it’s a very authentic experience, and anyone who’s ever been on the Camino and knows it, whether they spent a week or six weeks on it, can tell you thefilm is exactly how it is. You will run into people that you would have never in a million years back home be attracted to or want anywhere near your space, and these are the people who end up telling you the most about yourself and who you are as a person.
DA: We didn’t want to Hollywood-ize it. You know, there’s temptation to do it, though. We’re sitting here with a film that gets you all this potential input, but we are the underdog. We’re marketing a film that Hollywood doesn’t necessarily embrace because they’re too busy pushing and looking for the next big budget movie. It’s not that they aren’t interested in our film, they’re just…
EE: Distracted.
DA: Yeah.
MS: We have no major connection to any Hollywood studio on this. We had a partner in Spain who helped us get it done there, and we had investors in America who helped us out back home with post.
DA: I mean, this was all Emilio’s idea. He had wanted to do something similar when he made Bobby, and I came on to help make that a reality. We didn’t want to do something hypocritical and only sell it in New York and Los Angeles like so many other independent productions. This is an independent film in spirit, but only because of how we really made it, but it’s a very mainstream film. It isn’t made for the sort of art house crowd. We don’t think it’s an art film at all, it works everywhere from Vancouver to Kansas City to anywhere in Middle America.
MS: We never wanted to bash anyone over the head with religion or sentiment. I think those are the two worst enemies of any artist. We wanted to invite you. You could take the journey vicariously. Young people have given us the most satisfying reaction because many of them are saying that they want to do the pilgrimage and they didn’t know anything about it. They’re just fascinated!
EE: It’s an open invitation to join us and be like the fifth Beatle, or whatever.
The Way opens in Toronto and Vancouver on November 4 and most major Canadian cities on November 11.
Top image: A scene from The Way. Courtesy Mongrel Media.
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