One On One With Martin Sheen
By Clyde Weiss
Whether he's President Bartlet on the NBC hit series "The West Wing" or the CIA killer who's sent on a mission to take out a crazed Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now," award-winning actor Martin Sheen is hard to ignore on or off the screen. An activist since age 12, when he organized a short-lived golf caddies union, Sheen has been an outspoken voice of conscience on a myriad of social issues.
For instance, he once slept on a sidewalk grate in the nation's capital to raise money for the homeless. He's also been arrested many times while protesting deplorable conditions for working men and women. He addressed delegates of AFSCME's 35th International Convention in Las Vegas last summer and was made an honorary member of the union.
You've taken on so many issues over the years. What's your primary concern these days?
The issue that touches all of us — our future and our children's future — is the environment. In every state and county across this country, people are suffering because of the mistakes of previous generations. We're going to continue paying for the future — and our children are going to have to pay for their children's future — if we don't start cleaning up our rivers and our air.
As an actor playing the President, you've no doubt given a lot of thought to how the real President is handling the social issues that you care about.
I don't see any energy, enthusiasm or imagination coming out of this administration. It doesn't focus on the real problems we're faced with — the environment, education, women's rights, unions and social justice issues. They're just null and void in this administration. Instead, I think the Bush people are focusing on power-basing — keeping the power they've gained in the White House and spreading it out, exponentially, throughout the country. Their interest is in keeping the status quo — power for its own sake.
What do you think of Bush's tax cuts?
I can think of better ways we could collectively spend that money — [on preserving] the environment. The tax cut was done to fulfill a campaign promise. It was a big ruse, primarily for rich people who didn't need it.
Are unions doing enough to influence change on social issues such as these?
Unions are trying to keep the slow-won victories of the past from unraveling, which has gradually happened over the last two years. The unions are almost going back to step one, with organizing, trying to get women more involved, exercising political power. Unfortunately, they have been in so many struggles around the country that their focus has been diverted.
While some unions — like AFSCME — have been growing in recent years, the union movement for decades has generally been on a steady decline. What do you think is needed to reverse that trend?
Unions simply have to unionize. Look at the Puerto Rican contingent that recently joined AFSCME. Rather than start one of their own, the Puerto Ricans threw in with your very powerful national union. The whole nation should be unionized. There's no excuse for anyone having to depend on the charity of an employer to make a decent living.
Has social activism "cost" your career — financially, in terms of good roles missed?
I can't specifically say what it's cost. I'm sure it has gained me an equal measure of anything I could possibly have lost. I'm sure there are more people who have hired me because of my social activism than not hired me because of it.
As a boy, you organized a golf caddies union and went on strike for higher wages. What happened, and what impact did it have on you?
Management threatened all the lads, and all of them went back for fear of losing their jobs. The last guy to stick with me was my older brother, Al. He became my first hero — besides my father — because he wouldn't give in until I gave the word and said, 'Al, it's not going to work.' But that was the most valuable experience of my young life because it taught me that anything worthwhile has got to cost you something. Usually, the more it costs, the more valuable it is.
Many actors have testified before Congress on various issues. Have you? What do you think of the practice?
I've been asked to testify on various things, but I've never done that. If I had, I would have prevented someone far more qualified from doing it.
Who has been the most influential public figure in your life, and why?
Martin Luther King Jr. — during the early '60s and the civil rights movement, I lived in New York, and I felt the full weight of discrimination as a child because I was half Hispanic. I'm not saying I faced anything like the prejudice that was heaped upon the black people with whom I grew up; I wouldn't even be able to comprehend that. But with Reverend King, I did have a great sense of awakening. He got our attention and made discrimination a moral issue, and gave his life for it. I don't know of any other public figure who gave that much, with the possible exception of Robert Kennedy.
