Emilio Estevez recalls dad Martin Sheen’s ‘drunk’ and ‘naked’ 1976 ‘Apocalypse Now’ meltdown
Emilio Estevez has shared some behind-the-scenes stories from his famous father’s time filming “Apocalypse Now” 49 years ago.
The “Breakfast Club” star, 62, opened up about his dad Martin Sheen’s infamous “meltdown” on the set of the Francis Ford Coppola film during Thursday’s episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast.
“In the documentary ‘Hearts of Darkness,’ they collapsed time and portrayed his breakdown, sort of, toward the end of the schedule, when in fact it was early in the schedule when my dad was celebrating his birthday in August,” Estevez explained, referencing the 1991 documentary about the Vietnam War epic.
“So, it was Aug. 3, and we had come,” he continued. “I had gotten there in July, so he has this meltdown on set because he was celebrating his birthday and he was drinking.”
In “Apocalypse Now,” Sheen’s character, Capt. Benjamin L. Willard, gets drunk and suffers a breakdown in a hotel room. It has since been revealed that the breakdown wasn’t part of Coppola’s script and that Sheen, now 84, was actually intoxicated at the time.
“Francis had him isolated in his room, and I was there. I watched it happen,” Estevez continued. “And I was there when they carted him out, and he was ranting and raging and screaming.”
“So we were filming in a building that was used for night court,” he recalled. “We carried him out that night, and night court was happening downstairs. So we came down the stairs.
“I’d seen my dad drunk before,” Estevez admitted. “Not on this level and certainly not this publicly.”
The situation only escalated from there, according to the “Mighty Ducks” actor.
“He demanded to go into the courtroom because he says, ‘If I don’t go in there’ — and he’s screaming at my mom — ‘I need to go into that courtroom because if I don’t go in there, some poor son of a bitch is gonna go to jail for masturbating in front of a pig,'” Estevez remembered. “And Francis was like, ‘Martin, Martin, no. Come on, Martin.'”
If that wasn’t enough excitement, the “St. Elmo’s Fire” star revealed that his father later “ran naked into the jungle” after Estevez and his mother, Janet, corralled the drunk Sheen into their car.
“It was hilarious,” Estevez said. “We got him in the car. We started driving — God knows where, just somewhere away from where we could get him calmed down, and he announced to everyone in the car that he had to pee.
“So we pull over the side of the road, and he got out and he ran naked into the jungle and kept going,” he continued. “My mom chases him down … We got him back in the car. Ten minutes later, ‘I have to pee again.’ My mom says, ‘Martin, you have cried wolf one too many times. We’re in the piss. You could piss all over yourself.'”
“Apocalypse Now” was filmed between March 1976 and May 1977 in the Philippines. It was not released until 1979 due to several production challenges, many of which were chronicled in “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.”
Besides Emilio, Martin and Janet Sheen also have children Renée Estevez, 58, Charlie Sheen, 59, and Ramon Estevez, 61.
The Brat Pack member’s story about his father on the set of “Apocalypse Now” came just days after he reunited with his “Breakfast Club” co-stars for the first time in 40 years.
It also came after Estevez blasted the director of “St. Elmo’s Fire,” Joel Schumacher, as a “nightmare” and “bully.”
