When he was 11, Emilio Estevez first appeared in Terrence Malick's "Badlands," which starred his dad, Martin Sheen. A few years later, he was part of Hollywood's infamous Brat Pack. But where's he been lately?
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00:00When he was 11, Emilio Estevez first appeared in Terrence Malick's Badlands,
00:05which starred his dad, Martin Sheen. A few years later,
00:08he was part of Hollywood's infamous Brat Pack. But where's he been lately?
00:12Two years after graduating from high school, Estevez landed the small role of Johnny in Tex,
00:16a Matt Dillon film adapted from the novel by S.E. Hinton. It was likely this association
00:21that scored him the role of Two-Bit in Francis Ford Coppola's iconic 1983 drama The Outsiders,
00:27which starred C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and Diane
00:32Lane. Out of that film, a new generation of stars began to emerge. The following year,
00:37Estevez appeared in another film classic, landing the lead role in Alex Cox's 1984 punk epic
00:43Repo Man. That film is a wonderfully caustic middle finger to Reagan-era capitalism and
00:48normalcy, and it drips with contempt. It's often included on lists of the best films of the 1980s,
00:53and Estevez's fierce performance remains one of his best.
00:57The term Brat Pack was coined in 1985 by David Bloom for a cover story in New York Magazine.
01:02According to Bloom, the Brat Pack consisted of any lead actor who appeared in either Joel
01:06Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire or John Hughes's The Breakfast Club. Estevez appeared in both,
01:12along with fellow Brat Packers Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson.
01:15It's an incredible time to be 22, 23 right now, and to be a young actor,
01:19because the films are catering to us.
01:21Estevez projected an everyman quality that made him feel approachable,
01:25while also being capable of outbursts of rage that hinted at emotional depth.
01:29There's a reason he became the face of a new generation of actors.
01:32We were all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.
01:37In 1985, Estevez appeared in another S.E. Hinton adaptation, That Was Then,
01:41This Is Now, for which he wrote the screenplay. And the following year,
01:44he made his directorial debut with Wisdom, a youthful criminals-on-the-run Robin Hood drama.
01:49Wisdom co-starred Brat Packer Demi Moore, as well as Tom Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright.
01:54Estevez cast his younger brother, Charlie Sheen, as an angry burger joint manager. By then,
01:59Estevez was poised to become either a soulful indie director or a major Hollywood star.
02:04Estevez was riding high by 1987, when he appeared opposite Richard Dreyfuss in John
02:09Badham's mainstream crime comedy, Stakeout. And after hours, he was living out the Brat Pack
02:13fantasy, wild parties, and high-profile relationships. He was engaged to Moore for
02:18a while, before dating actress Mimi Rogers. He also dated model Keri Sally, and had two kids
02:23with her. And eventually, he married and divorced Paula Abdul.
02:27"'Golf Club?"
02:28"'Golf Club.'"
02:341988 saw the release of the hit film Young Guns, a pop-western famous for its action and its
02:39unbearably attractive young cast. In addition to Estevez, who played Billy the Kid, the film starred
02:44Lou Diamond Phillips, Kiefer Sutherland, Dermot Mulroney, and Charlie Sheen. He followed it up
02:49with 1990's Young Guns II, another hit, with a theme song and a cameo by Jon Bon Jovi. The Young
02:54Guns movies were marketed hard to girls between the ages of 12 and 15 as cute boy movies,
02:59and the strategy paid off. In 1992, Estevez signed on to starring Disney's kid-friendly
03:05sports movie The Mighty Ducks, playing an arrogant attorney who, as his community
03:09service following a DUI conviction, becomes the reluctant coach of a terrible kids hockey team.
03:14I hate hockey and I don't like kids."
03:16The Mighty Ducks got mediocre reviews, and rightly so. It's treatly and full of cliches.
03:20Still, Ducks was a success, making $50 million on a $14 million budget,
03:25making it ripe for a sequel. And where one sequel is good, two are sometimes better.
03:29Ducks hatched D2, The Mighty Ducks, and D3, The Mighty Ducks, plus a wholly unrelated animated
03:35series about anthropomorphic sci-fi duck hockey warriors in 1996. But The Mighty Ducks signaled
03:41a downturn in Estevez's career. He was no longer a wild child. Hollywood didn't know what to do
03:46with him. He appeared in the universally panned slapstick comedy Loaded Weapon 1 and the less
03:50popular sequel to Stakeout, called Another Stakeout. Something had to give. With one last
03:55gasp, Estevez appeared in Brian De Palma's mega-hit Mission Impossible, but his character
04:00dies very early.
04:01"'Osta lasagna, don't get any on ya."
04:03After that, Estevez was officially out of the Hollywood mainstream. His Brat Pack pass had
04:08expired.
04:09Estevez was born and bred for the business, however, and he wasn't going to give up easily.
04:13Since Wisdom, he'd written and directed the crass garbageman comedy Men at Work,
04:17which was poorly reviewed but made money. So he decided to give it a third try with
04:20The War at Home, in which he starred opposite his dad. In a 2006 interview with The Guardian,
04:25Estevez explained that he signed to appear in Mighty Ducks 3 for
04:28no money in exchange for Disney agreeing to finance and distribute The War at Home
04:32later that year. But Disney only technically kept their end of the bargain. As Estevez explained,
04:37They released the film in four theaters. The heartbreak of that almost forced me out
04:41of the business."
04:42Despite a cast that included Kathy Bates, Carla Gugino, and Kimberly Williams, the film made
04:47just $44,000 at the box office. And things were getting worse. In the 1998 film A Night
04:52at the Roxbury, Estevez's name was used as a punchline.
04:55"'Amelio Estevez, the Mighty Duck Man.'"
04:59He didn't leave Hollywood, and he wasn't kicked out, but it sure seems like he was
05:02shown the door.
05:03Like his father, Estevez wasn't ready to retire. In 2000, he wrote, directed, and starred opposite
05:08his brother, Charlie Sheen, in Rated X, a Showtime film about the Mitchell brothers,
05:12a pair of 70s and 80s-era adult entertainment entrepreneurs.
05:17Nice letter. You misspelled filmmaker.
05:20From there, he began to get TV directing jobs, helming episodes of The Guardian,
05:23Cold Case, and CSI New York throughout the early 2000s. Then he broke through.
05:28In 2006, Estevez wrote and directed the prestige drama Bobby, an ensemble drama
05:33about the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated, which received a slew of awards nominations.
05:37He followed it up with The Way in 2010, starring his father.
05:41We agreed that if I let you take me to the airport,
05:43you wouldn't lecture me about how I'm ruining my life.
05:45I lied.
05:46Then in 2018, Estevez wrote and directed the social justice film The Public,
05:50about a group of unhoused people who take refuge from the cold in the public library.
05:54I'm looking for a list of laws I can break that would send me back to jail for a couple of months.
06:01As a director, Estevez has a very laid-back sensibility,
06:04handling large groups of actors and interweaving stories with great finesse.
06:08His films, however, aren't flashy or celebrity-studded,
06:11so they rarely gain a lot of press. And Estevez operates the same way.
06:14These days, Estevez remains out of the public eye on purpose.
06:18In 2010, talking to Busted Halo, he admitted he's bad at self-promotion, saying,
06:23I've never been a guy that just sort of went out there to get publicity on myself.
06:27I just never saw the value in it.
06:29It seems he's happier leading a quiet life making art.