BT-10. A Conversation with Martin Sheen

Martin Sheen to receive Master of Cinema award

Martin Sheen is one of our most celebrated, colorful and accomplished actors. Moving flawlessly between artistic media, Sheen's acting range is breathtaking. His 65 films include some of the most memorable American movies of all time: Apocalypse Now, Bobby (with William H. Macy), Wall Street, Catch-22, Badlands, Gandhi, Catch Me If You Can, The American President and many others.

More recent films include Love Happens with Jennifer Aniston, Talk to Me with Don Cheadle, The Double with Richard Gere and Stella Days, for which Sheen received an Irish Academy Film Award nomination for Best Actor. Currently, he can be seen in The Way, written and directed by his son Emilio Estevez. The film chronicles the story of an American man whose son dies while on pilgrimage on El Camino de Santiago--the Way of St. James. This summer, Sheen stars as Uncle Ben Parker in the big budget feature The Amazing Spider-Man.

For television, Sheen is perhaps best known for playing fictional U.S. President Josiah Bartlet on the long-running NBC series "The West Wing." For his acting on film and TV, Sheen has garnered over 70 major awards and honors including a Tony Award nomination, a National Board of Review Award, 13 Emmy Award nominations, 13 SAG Award nominations and eight Golden Globe Award nominations.

Sheen is also widely recognized as a peace and justice activist. As such, he has been arrested or cited almost 70 times for peaceful protest. He often brings his activism to the stage. This March, he joins George Clooney, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jesse Tyler Ferguson in the Los Angeles premiere of the play "8," based on the court fight over California's gay marriage ban, Proposition 8. Martin Sheen--his legal name is still Ramon Estevez--and Janet Sheen have been married for 50 years. They have four children: Emilio, Ramon, Charlie and Renee.