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Waves crash onto the sun-washed beach near Santa Monica, Calif., where Emilio Estevez is relaxing with his dog, a huge, friendly Rhodesian Ridgeback named Rowdy.
"I'm taking a little time off to sort of enjoy some R&R," says Estevez. ''I've been working for 18 months straight with no time off."
It's true. He's been awfully busy. In Young Guns II, he reprises his 1988 Young Guns role of Billy the Kid. And he directs, writes and co-stars with his brother, Charlie Sheen, in the new film Men at Work.
There's more. Estevez also stars in Free Jack, a futuristic high-tech thriller, scheduled to be released later this year.
"I play a guy who is catapulted - literally kidnapped - into the future," he says.
So is Estevez a workaholic?
"I'm in the achievement phase of my life right now," he says. "Then I've got to get into the familial stage.
"I'm 28 years old now, just two away from 30, a year closer to the pine box." He adds, "I want to be in the family stage soon, let's say before I'm 35."
As yet, there are no candidates for the role of Mrs. Estevez. "I don't have a regular girlfriend right now, as a matter of fact," he says. "But I've got my eyes open and I'm looking. This single life just isn't happening - especially living out at the beach."
But right now, Estevez says, he's too involved with his career to concentrate on a relationship.
"And I want to be able to work as hard at a relationship as I do at my work," he says. "Right now, the reality is I wouldn't. And that wouldn't be fair." Even casual dating, he says, is "sort of out these days. Forget that."
Instead, he's focusing on the movie business.
Estevez, one of four children of actor Martin Sheen, had his first hit in 1984's Repo Man. He was dubbed a member of the Hollywood Brat Pack after starring in the 1985 movies St. Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club.
In 1986, he wrote, directed and co-starred with Demi Moore in Wisdom - what could be seen as his effort to prove himself an adept and full-fledged member of the film community. It was not a commercial or critical success.
Wearing the Brat Pack label meant that Estevez often found his exploits scrutinized in the tabloids. About those not-so-distant days, he says, "I've slowed down a lot in my old age. Now I'd rather stay home and lead a real quiet life, maybe go to dinner and the movies. That's a big night out for me.
"When I was younger - I'm sure you read all that stuff about how I was running around and acting like a movie star. Oh boy, it was madness," he says with a weary sigh.
"I don't think it was fun. . . . You think there is an image you have to live up to, something expected of you and that you should act a certain way. So you act on it."
Looking out at the ocean, he says, "So . . . I've done some maturing." And, he adds, "I live much farther out of the city, so I'm less likely to get into trouble now."
What kind of trouble did he previously find? "Basically, hanging out late, the whole club scene, which is basically nowhere," he says. "The important thing for me now is to concentrate on the work and build the foundation I'll be living on for the next 30 years or longer."
His current film, Men at Work, is a comedy about two sanitation workers, James St. James (Estevez) and Carl Taylor (Sheen), whose very laid-back lives are totally changed when they discover a political candidate's corpse in a bin on their route.
"I started writing it back in 1984 when I was doing St. Elmo's Fire," Estevez says as he heads to his beach house. "It's a very different kind of movie, very definitely left of center."
Why garbagemen? "It's really garbagemen from hell!" he says.
The idea came to him when he was living in a little Santa Monica studio apartment. His windows faced the alley and around 5 a.m. the trash collectors rolled down.
"They were cursing and laughing and throwing barrels up against the wall," Estevez says. "So I thought . . . there had never been a film made about garbagemen before. So why not?"
In his movie, the two characters start out concerned with little but who buys the next six-pack of beer and how good the waves are for surfing.
"They're buddies, surfers. They drink and chase women," says Estevez, " . . . until they find a body in the trash and it literally turns their lives upside down." The body is that of a mayoral candidate who had planned to bring down an industrial polluter.
What was it like for Estevez to direct his brother? Among Sheen's major movies are Platoon (1986) and Wall Street (1987); he currently stars in Navy Seals.
"On a professional level, Charlie is just amazing," Estevez observes. ''. . . I know he has a reputation for being a very serious dramatic actor, which he is quite good at."
But Estevez says he wanted Sheen to "sort of push the envelope and play the humor. He has a wonderful sense of humor, which hasn't really been put on film yet - up to now. Charlie has a very dry sense of humor, very cynical. And out of that comes some great, great humor."
The two brothers started making films together as children when their father and their mother, Janet, bought them a movie camera.
"It was always hard for Charlie and me to save enough money to go down to the drugstore to buy a roll of film that was four minutes in length," Estevez says. "Four minutes was the extent of most of our films and . . . we had to edit in the camera because we didn't have the editing facilities back then."
He says it was a learning experience and it was fun to use the family members as a cast. "Whoever was behind the camera was the director and cameraman," he says. "And Charlie and I would switch off. If I was in a scene, he would direct it, and if he was in a scene, I would direct it."
Martin Sheen is also known for his dramatic work, but Estevez says he really thinks his father ought to try a comic role.
"Talk about someone who has a great sense of humor," Estevez says. "Dad should really do some comedy, but he never gets a chance to express it in his work. Someday I want to direct a comedy and put him in it."
His father, Estevez says, is also the main reason that the brothers are actors.
"I think when we're kids we all want to do what our dads and moms do
because that's the closest example of what there is as adults," he says.
For many years, the older Sheen traveled extensively to locations around the world for films.
"My dad was terrific in that he included the entire family. Whenever he traveled, the entire family went with him," Estevez says.
"So I had a chance to be on a lot of movie sets. And by the time I walked onto my first movie set as an actor, I felt very comfortable because I'd been there (on sets) before."
On a set, he says, his father "treats everybody just the same. So he's a
joy and everyone loves working with him. He really is a prince and I've tried to emulate that."
Estevez has learned his own lessons about being a director. And he knows that "especially when you're directing, you really have to create harmony aboard ship."
So what does Estevez enjoy about acting?
"You have a lot of fun!" he says. "And you have an opportunity to create a character. In the case of Billy the Kid, you create someone historical. I created him as a complete lunatic, (someone who'll go) out there and kill people and laugh about it and not have to worry about going to jail."
He adds, "To a certain extent if you direct and act you never have to really grow up. You become a teenager, maybe."
Yet, perhaps taking a cue from his activist father, who has helped the homeless, Estevez the grown-up is forging his own brand of activism. He's proud to say that Men at Work has a basic environmental theme.
"For me to be able to do a movie where saving the environment is the underlying theme is the greatest contribution I can make, I think," he says. ''More people are going to see what I'm doing in a film and be educated through entertainment than if I show up at a rally.
"I'm working on putting the causes I think we need to address into my work and into the projects I choose."
Credit: By Candace Burke-Block, Special to The Inquirer
PHOTO (4)
1. In "Men at Work," which he wrote, directed and stars in, Estevez is a
garbageman.
2. Says Estevez of directing: "You really have to create harmony aboard
ship."
3. Estevez (left) is proud of the environmental theme of "Men at Work," co-
starring Charlie Sheen (right).
4. Emilio Estevez; As Billy the Kid in "Young Guns II"
Copyright Philadelphia Media Network (Newspapers) LLC Sep 2, 1990