Sheen Explores Faith, Family and New Film
Martin Sheen's voice bellowed through the other end of the Norfolk, Va. office phone. One could not mistake this voice from the hit PC game Mass Effect’s Illusive Man, Apocalypse Now, and now his new movie, The Way, written and directed by his eldest son Emilio Estevez.
Moving full throttle into our interview, Sheen inquired about the area code he was calling. He's been to Virginia before as he shot a sci-fi film aboard the USS Nimitz in the 70s.
“I had four brothers in the Navy, three of them were stationed in Norfolk and one was stationed in San Diego. The film was about going back in time to Pearl Harbor and suddenly the Nimitz was involved in the attack. It was called The Final Countdown and it was filmed in Norfolk. We spent a lot of time there in the summer and in 1979. Yes, so I am very fond of your community.”
Personally, I love interviewing people that have a personality and genuinely love to chat; Sheen was an interviewer's dream come true. Maybe that’s why his son Emilio joked in an earlier interview with Beliefnet how people just gravitate to his dad--he's personable to a fault.
Sheen's authenticity permeated the conversation and his passion for meaningful connections. Something he deemed we lost along our own journey. "People, although having their own cross to carry, can minister to others through their own pain. This is what the film is about,” said Sheen who received 10 Emmy nominations and has dealt with his own family struggles of addiction and media circus of his youngest son Charlie Sheen.