Man for all seasons-Martin Sheen

Irish independent
January 13, 2007

HAVING a conversation in Galway with Martin Sheen is difficult: you keep getting interrupted by students. We are standing outside the Galway Bay Hotel on a cold, windy December day, bemoaning the smoking ban and talking about how hard it is to give up cigarettes.

“I gave them up for 14 years he tells me, “and I went back on them when I started doing The West Wing. “They are a curse,” is my response. “They sure are,” he agrees.

A group of NUI Galway students emerges from the hotel, which is hosting some end-of-semester exams. They stop and chat for a minute and get some autographs before one of them produces a disposable camera.

“A picture? Sure,” Sheen says, before handing me the camera. Conscious of the fact that Sheen is a busy man and I have a flight to catch, I tell them all to squish in and say ‘Cheese’. “Nonsense,” he says, “we can take individual ones.”

The reason for Sheen’s popularity with the student body of Null Galway is not just his extensive filmography or his impressive civil rights record, but that he is one of them. Last September he fulfilled a lifelong dream by becoming a student for one semester at Galway, where he studied English Literature, Philosophy, Oceanography and Computers.

Sheen’s affinity with Ireland stems from his mother, Mary Ann Phelan, a Tipperary woman who emigrated to America during the War Of Independence. There she met and married fellow immigrant Francisco Estevez, who arrived in the US from Spain, via Cuba. The pair settled in Ohio, where they reared 10 children, of which Martin is seventh.

Far from being bothered by all the attention from students while in college, Sheen clearly revels in it.

“I always feel like I am being blessed when someone stops me on campus or in a restaurant or in the streets,” he says- “It is such a warm feeling of hospitality and friendship, and the phrase I keep hearing is, “You’re welcome to Galway,” he says with a very passable Galway accent.

“I have felt that since I arrived. This has been one of the great adventures of my life. I couldn’t be happier. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner?”

So is he fully participating in student life? Is it all halls of residence and the student unions bar?

“No,” he laughs. “I am only here for one semester so we (he and wife Janet) took an apartment, just over there,” he says pointing to the left, “several metres away, on the hill overlooking the bay. But we go out a lot. There are so many wonderful places in and around Galway.

‘We found a wonderful place just up in Barna, just a few kilometres up the road, called Donnelly’s pub. I am very fond of pub grub, as you call it, and we have become regulars there. And a lot of places in town and here in Salthill, like The Gallion. I have my spots?”

The incident of the students and the disposable camera is typical of Sheen. Everyone is greeted with a smile. When he arrived at the hotel earlier in the day, he happily signed autographs and posed for Pictures with the staff before coming over to introduce himself. “Make plenty of time,” he warns, “I am a bit of a gasbag.”

He was right. Not that he is a gasbag, far from it, but it is difficult to get a word in, so passionate is he about, well, pretty much everything - his new film Bobby, his son Emilio, the war in Iraq, American politics, marriage.

With his 45th wedding anniversary pending, he is well placed to comment on the latter. Despite that, he must get bored, even insulted, by being asked ‘the secret’ of such a long Tinsel town marriage?

“Not in lieu of the way so many so-called Hollywood marriages crash after a short time. We are not a Hollywood marriage. We met in New York and were together for a year before we got married in 1961, on December 23.”

So what is his recipe for success?

“Success depends on the people more than the environment I think,” he says. “And neither Jan nor I believed in the cultural image of marriage, vis-a-vis this person is going to make you happy. You have yourself to solve that problem.

“I think that has been the success of our marriage. That we risk each other’s wrath by telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to each other the whole time.

“I also disagree with the idea that ‘we’ become one. If you accept that, then you have to choose one - the male or the female - that you are going to be. And already someone is left out. If you maintain your own personhood and trust the other person, then it’s an honest relationship. It’s risky and equally fulfilling.

“I know, and I have known all my adult life, that this woman will tell me the truth. And it’s not easy but I love that about her, and I have to confess that a lot of the time I haven’t a clue who she is, because she grows all the time, but I always know I can count on her.”

Perhaps Sheen’s strong Roman Catholic beliefs also have something to do with it, In fact, not only is the 66-year-old a man of great faith, he also took his name from the Catholic archbishop and theologian Fulton J Sheen (the actor was born Ramon Estevez).

Janet has had more than a small hand in his career. Not only has she made a home for him and raised their family - they have four children, all actors: Emilio, Charlie, Renee and Ramon - he also seeks her advice before taking or rejecting a job.

“I get offered a project and she would read the script and we would discuss the director and the other players, and most importantly, the text itself. Is it worthy? Why am I considering doing it? Is it just for the money?

“I have to be honest, most of the work I have done has been for the money, and I have to confess that, as a result, I have only done a handful of projects that really speak of my own personal feelings or that have really challenged my abilities. Apocalypse Now would be right at the top, and Badlands, Bobby…”

Speaking of Bobby, what did he missus thinks of its director?

“She had her reservations, obviously,” he laughs.

Bobby, which tells the story of the night of the assassination of Robert Kennedy from the viewpoint of the staff and guests at The Ambassador Hotel in LA, is directed by none other than Emillo Estevez, the son of Janet and Martin. Sheen glows with pride when he talks about Emilio and his achievement in making this film.

“One time a journalist asked me to try and describe my relationship with Emilio and I said, ‘Well, I have known him all of my life.’ And he said, ‘You mean you have known him all of his life.’

“And I said, ‘No, no, I have known him all of my life, I just didn’t know he was the one until he showed up. When I realised who he was, I realised that I had been waiting for him all my life.

“Emilio and I have always had this brother-brother relationship rather than father and son, and it is just the way it naturally developed. And it made perfect sense to me. I was his father when I was 22, and I was a grandfather when I was 42. My dad was 42 when I was born, and so our relationship has been, seemingly, always mature. I always treated him like an equal”

Bobby, a labour of love for Estevez has been nearly 10 years in the making. Speaking to his father, it is obvious where he got his passion for Bobby Kennedy from. Sheen, now a close friend of the Kennedys, remembers the moment when the two met.

“I met Bobby Kennedy when he was running for the senate in New York. We were living in New York at the time and I spent about three hours with him one afternoon at a rally in the old Madison Square Garden.

“The rally was to save the Brooklyn Naval Yard. It was an election year and all the politicians running for office were there, including Bobby’s opponent, the incumbent Republican senator Kenneth Keating, Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Wagner.

“They held Bobby until the end and I got kind of annoyed that they made him hang around all that time but when he spoke, I realised why. If he had spoken before, everyone would have left afterward. I will never forget what a profound effect he had on me.

“He got up and spoke for five minutes, tops. He quoted George Bernard Shaw: ‘Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and say why not.’ And he brought the house down. I have been a fan ever since?”

Sheen believes that the assassination of Bobby, coming as it did on the heels of the terror offensive in Vietnam and the assassination of Rev Martin Luther King, marked the end of the world as he knew it.

“For our generation it all unraveled and it never, ever, ever became human again. We lost Bobby and we got Nixon. It got gradually worse, with the exceptions of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. It just got worse and worse.

“There was such despair in the country, particularly among the young, which began with the murder of Bobby’s brother John, who inspired us with such a clear and fantastic vision of the future. Our country had never experienced anything like that.

“We were used to old politicians and suddenly this young man, born in the 20^th century, with such intelligence and vision and humanity, was the leader of the free world, and what a leader he was. He had inspired the world to higher form of idealism and he spoke from his heart.”

With such a love and passion for politics, would Sheen, whose President Bartlet from The west wing is considered the preferred leader of the free world by many Americans, ever consider going into politics?

“No plans to,” he replies.

Not even student union president?

“I won’t, no,” he laughs. “I only belong to one society on campus, and that is the mature student society. I thought about joining the fencing team but I realized my skills physically were a little limited and I wouldn’t be a very helpful addition.”

You would have to give up the fags again, I suggest.

“I would,” he says laughing heartily. “I certainly would.” End.