Under a Galician sun: Hollywood father, son team film spiritual journey that mirrors their own
By Nancy Erikson, Editor
Perhaps one day, without a film crew or a movie script or an air-conditioned trailer full of bottled water and prepackaged snacks, Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez will find themselves walking along El Camino de Santiago--The way of St. James.
The 800-kilometer historic pilgrimage trail--treaded upon by popes, saints and seekers from all faith traditions for centuries--will take father and son from the quaint French village of St. Jean Pied de Port through the grandiose Pyrenees Mountains across the sun-drenched northern Spanish region of Galicia to the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela. They will perhaps carry backpacks and scallop shells--the sign of St. James and a pilgrim on El Camino--and follow the warm Galician sun by day and brilliant Milky Way by night. They'll sleep at the posadas--hostels--and have their credencials del peregrino--Camino passports--stamped at the spiritual stops along the way.
And just maybe, as Martin Sheen explains, they'll "go inside and hear the heartbeat and awaken the voice."
"I'm determined to do it," said the 71-year-old Sheen during a recent interview in Cleveland with the Catholic Universe Bulletin. "I long to do it. And seriously to have that time, that freedom, to make the journey physically but also to go inside and hear the heartbeat and awaken the voice and be ruled by that, the transcendent pilgrimage which is inside. That I long for. If I only had the time."
"But you have to promise not to sign any autographs or take pictures," quips Estevez to his father, who is beloved as a star who genuinely enjoys spending time with his fans, allowing them to take photos and get autographs no matter how long it takes or how tired he is after shooting a film.
They both laugh good-naturedly with each other at Estevez's joke--like two people who have been spending a lot of time together.
And they have. At the time of the interview, they had been on a cross-country bus tour to promote their new movie, "The Way," a simple and touching story written and directed by Estevez about a widower doctor, Dr. Tom Avery, whose grown son--his only child--is killed in a storm while starting to walk El Camino. The doctor, who is played by Sheen, decides to reconnect with his faith and express his grief by walking the Camino for his son, bringing his son's ashes with him. Along the way, he is joined by three other pilgrims who are struggling with their own life challenges and help each other find inner peace.
While placed in a Catholic setting, the film has universal appeal for not only fathers and sons but anyone searching for answers in their lives.
"This movie has the potential to address all the big life themes--grief, loss, family, faith, lapse in faith," Estevez said. "So the idea was to go over there and create this, sort of an emotional tornado for this character of Tom that picks him up out of California and deposits him in St. Jean where he's about to have the journey of a lifetime."
The film is shot on location on El Camino in Northern Spain, which is a sort of homecoming for Sheen--whose real name is Ramon Estevez--and Emilio. Sheen's father, Francisco Estevez came to Dayton from the Galicia region of Spain where he raised Sheen and his siblings. Estevez's son, Taylor, met his wife while traveling on the Camino with Sheen during a break from The West Wing.
Well known for his characters in films about teen angst in the 80s and feel-good family movies in the 90s, Emilio Estevez, 49, has grown into passionate and gifted writer, filmmaker and producer. He also acts in the movie, playing the role of the doctor's son, opposite his real-life father.
"I've always been a storyteller," Estevez explains. "I started out as a writer...The acting was somewhat of a vehicle that I used to get there. I really enjoy being on both sides of the camera. I like directing myself. I have a ball when I'm doing it."
That fun shows in the film where even the limited scenes they have together, Estevez and Sheen have a real chemistry on screen.
"That's one of the great pleasures of my life--working with my children," Sheen said. "I never, ever pass up an opportunity to do so."
Estevez smiles as he explains that he wrote the story at his father's insistence--"you know how kids want to please their parents"--and had his dad in mind from the beginning to play the main character, a lapsed Catholic who has to face not only an emotional but spiritual crisis as well.
Sheen reflects that in many ways, his character's faith journey reflects his own 30 years ago. He said growing up in a Catholic home before Vatican II with a Spanish father and Irish mother, he had an outdated view of what being Catholic meant. He describes himself being on shaky ground after filming Apocalypse but he rediscovered his faith in 1981.
"I came back to a totally different church," Sheen said. "I didn't want to come back out of fear or guilt or you know, anxiety over condemnation. I came back out of love and service. I have a phrase that kind of encapsulates it. Mother Teresa drove me back to Catholicism. But (Jesuit Father) Daniel Berrigan keeps me there. I came back to the Church a peace and social justice activist. My actions in social justice, in peace and social justice issues, was a reflection of my faith. The last 30 years of my life have been by far the most difficult and equally the happiest because I became myself."
Since returning, Sheen has brought his faith into much of his life's work on and off the screen. His character of President Jed Bartlett in The West Wing often prayed the rosary when times were difficult.
And social justice activists have been pleasantly surprised to stand side-by-side with Sheen in demonstrations to close the School of the Americas--which has been linked with human rights abuses in Central America--or promote environmental or world peace causes.
Through it all, Sheen finds strength in prayer, the sacraments and his relationship with Christ and in seeing the face of Christ in others.
"I love the faith," Sheen said. "I have problems with the structured Church and I think we should-- we've got problems with our Church and we should address them. But the faith belongs to us. That's the Church. The mystical body. That great mystery of the incarnation where God chooses us and we discover that we are loved. That's what I love about the community of faith."
As for Estevez, his personal faith journey has been much like the character of Daniel who travels the world in search of a connection with God and with humankind. Estevez explains that growing up in a home where his mother, Janet Templeton, had been raised Southern Baptist and father was Catholic, he needed to look inside at what he believed--a process that continues today.
"My mom likes to say I'm a work in progress," Estevez said. "I believe that. I think if you look back at the film, you can see where I'm at in terms of my spiritual life.
"I'm on a journey. I think we all are. And whether or not you acknowledge it, we're all on a spiritual quest. The question is, do you pay attention to that quest? Are you in touch with that? I don't think I could have made the film if I wasn't."
For information about the movie visit the Website at www.theway-themovie.com.
(This article originally appeared in the Friday, October 14, 2011 issue of the Catholic Universe Bulletin, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Cleveland. It is re-printed here with permission of the Catholic Universe Bulletin.)
Visit the 'Catholic Universe Bulletin' web site at: www.catholicuniversebulletin.org/