While appearing on Tuesday’s episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” actor Emilio Estevez revealed that when he was 14 years old, Laurence Fishburne saved him from drowning.
The incident happened in the Philippines, where Estevez had accompanied his father, Martin Sheen, for the filming of “Apocalypse Now.” Fishburne, who like Estevez was only 14 at the time, also appeared in the film; he had lied about his age to get the part of Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class Tyrone “Mr. Clean” Miller.
“We’d only known each other a couple of days,” Estevez explained. “And this was in the Philippines. And he says, ‘Hey there’s this little boat. Let’s go out on it.’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and we were both 14 at the time. So we were out on this boat together, and we started getting too close to the shore, and I said, ‘Well, let me jump out, I’ll push us offshore.’ I jumped out, and it was like quicksand mud.”
Estevez continued, “I was just sinking, and I just saw Fishburne just looking at me going, ‘Grab my hand,’ and he pulled me back onto the boat. We were bonded ever since.”
Sheen chimed in and told Hudson he didn’t know about his son’s near-death experience until recently, when he and Estevez wrote their joint memoir, “Along the Way: The Journey of a Father and Son.”
“I called Mr. Fishburne to thank him for saving my son’s life,” Sheen said to Hudson once he read about what happened.
Released in 1979, “Apocalypse Now” is a reimagining of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” set during the Vietnam war. Sheen portrays a U.S. Army officer tasked with assassinating a renegade Special Forces Colonel, played by Marlon Brando, who sees himself as a God. As for Fishburne, by the time the film was finished he was finally the same age — 17 — as his character.
See Estevez and Sheen’s interview at the top of the page.
