Martin Sheen - Career

Career

Sheen has said he was greatly influenced by the actor James Dean. He developed a theatre company with other actors in hopes that a production would earn him recognition. In 1963, he made an appearance in Nightmare, an episode of the television science fiction series The Outer Limits. The following year, he starred in the Broadway play The Subject Was Roses, reprising his role in the 1968 film of the same name. In 1969 Live Bait "pilot for Then Came Bronson" (Mission: Impossible) third season of the TV series, Sheen played Albert, assistant to the colonel interrogating an American agent that IM was tasked to free. He then played Dobbs in the film adaptation of Catch-22. Sheen was then a co-star in the controversial Emmy Award-winning 1972 television movie That Certain Summer, said to be the first television movie in America to portray homosexuality in a sympathetic light. His next important feature film role was in 1973, when he starred with Sissy Spacek in the crime drama Badlands, which he has said is his best film. Also in 1973, Sheen appeared opposite David Janssen in "Such Dust As Dreams Are Made On", which was the first pilot for Harry O.

In 1974, Sheen portrayed a hot rod driver in the television movie The California Kid, and that same year received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor in a television drama for his portrayal of Pvt. Eddie Slovik in the television film The Execution of Private Slovik. Based on an incident that occurred during World War II, the film told the story of the only U.S. soldier to be executed for desertion since the American Civil War. Sheen's performance ultimately led to Francis Ford Coppola choosing him for a starring role in 1979's Apocalypse Now, a film that gained him wide recognition. Filming in the Philippine jungle in the typhoon season of 1976, Sheen admitted he was not in the greatest shape and was drinking heavily. For the film’s legendary opening sequence in a Saigon hotel room, Sheen didn’t have to act so much since it was his 36th birthday and he was very drunk. After 12 months, Sheen reached breaking point, suffering a minor heart attack and he had to crawl out to a road for help. After his heart attack, his younger brother Joe Estevez stood in for him in a number of long shots and in some of the voice-overs. Sheen was able to resume filming a few weeks later.

Sheen has played U.S. President John F. Kennedy (in the miniseries Kennedy — The Presidential Years); Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in the television special The Missiles of October; White House Chief of Staff A.J. McInnerney in The American President; sinister future president Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone; the President in the two-part TV movie, Medusa's Child; and fictional Democratic president Josiah "Jed" Bartlet in the acclaimed television drama, The West Wing.

On November 4, 2010, it was confirmed that he had been cast as Uncle Ben in Sony's 2012 reboot of the Spider-Man film series, The Amazing Spider-Man, directed by Marc Webb.

Sheen has performed voice-over work as the narrator for the Eyewitness series and as the "real" Seymour Skinner in the controversial Simpsons episode "The Principal and the Pauper." In addition, he played the role of the Illusive Man in the highly acclaimed video game Mass Effect 2, and the sequel, Mass Effect 3. Martin Sheen is also the host of In Focus, a television program that airs on PBS affiliate stations on Public Television.

Sheen recently travelled to Mexico City to star in Chamaco with Kirk Harris, Alex Perea, Gustavo Sanchez Parra and Michael Madsen. In November 2010 he filmed Stella Days in County Tipperary, Ireland, near the birthplace of his mother. Thaddeus O'Sullivan is directing and Irish actor Stephen Rea also stars. He appeared in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" as Captain Oliver Queenan, a commanding officer who is watching an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is a mole in an Irish American mob run by a vicous mob boss (Jack Nicholson). Martin Sheen and son Ramon Estevez combined both their real and stage names to create the Warner Bros.-affiliated company, Estevez Sheen Productions. The company’s latest film is The Way, written and directed by Sheen's son Emilio Estevez who also stars in the film as Martin’s on-screen son, who dies while hiking the Camino de Santiago. His daughter, Renée, also has a part in the film. Driven by sadness, Martin’s character, an American doctor, leaves his Californian life and embarks on the 800-km pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees to Spain’s Santiago de Compostela himself, with his son’s ashes. It was set to be released in theaters on Easter 2011.

Martin appeared in the Irish Film entitled Stella Days directed by Irish Director Thaddeus O'Sullivan and stars IFTA award winning actress Amy Huberman. The film sees Martin Sheen play parish priest, Daniel Barry, whose love for the cinema leads him on a path to help set up a local cinema in the town of Borrisokane. Daniel comes up against opposition from doubtful local parishioners who question his faith and the Bishop Hegarty, played by Tom Hickey, who is more interested in raising funds for a new church.