The Power of Storytelling: A Conversation with ‘The Way’ Writer-Director Emilio Estevez

Since its theatrical release in 2011, Emilio Estevez’s film The Way has been "running a quiet marathon" garnering millions of fans across all generations; widely admired by those who see the film as a rare work of art, uniquely balancing faith and doubt; sorrow and joy. And just as the Camino pilgrimage itself has been followed for a millennium to reveal some deeper revelation in one’s life—The Way also carries a similar impact for all who have seen it. And yet still, there is a new generation who will embrace this film. They’ve heard about the Camino but may have never seen the movie, certainly not in a theater setting. As Spring arrives, those who are yearning to travel after years of chaos are expressing their desire to begin their own personal "Caminos." The opportunity to sit in a theater and "travel to Spain," with friends, loved ones (and strangers) is what The Way is about, perhaps above all else. In 2023, The Way is the movie we all need, at a time when we need it the most.

The Way is an incredibly timely and meditative film for viewers to be still and reflect through the characters on screen and within themselves - at least, that's what happened during my viewing experience.

 The Camino Pilgrimage is not for the faint of heart, both physically and emotionally, and filmmaker and actor Emilio Estevez captures it all in the 123-minute film, which was originally released in 2011. Now, 12 years later, Emilio has partnered with Fathom Events for a theatrical re-release across 1,000 screens on May 16, 2023. 

Emilio reflects on the moment, "...this started out as a labor of love. And now it's become more of a calling and a passion, and people are excited to see the movie again on screen." He quips, a reality for most if not all independent filmmakers, rarely get a shot to have their films back out on the big screen. The momentum has been unexpected - but I think, it's all about being at the right place, at the right time (even if it's 12 years later).

Emilio Estevez spoke with Script about how he conceptualized the story from a personal place to then picking up author Jack Hitt's book, the journey and destination of the Pilgrimage, his collaboration with his father and actor Martin Sheen, what he hopes audiences will take away from the film, and so much more!

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: Here you are 12 years later with this film - the power of storytelling. It never ceases to amaze me. And I think that's why we're all in this crazy business just because of that.

Emilio Estevez: Right? Well, it started with cave paintings. It started with, ‘Bill went out on the hunt. And Bill didn't come back.’ [laughs]

Sadie: Let's dig deeper on that. [laughs]

Emilio: [laughs] We've evolved beyond that. But we're still telling the same stories, right?

Sadie: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s start from the very beginning of this films journey. What was it about the book that initially resonated with you?

Emilio: Well, it started actually before the book. It started in 2003. When my dad went to Spain, not even a fact-finding mission,  he had always wanted to see what Santiago de Compostela looked like. He had a brief hiatus during the West Wing, like a six-week hiatus, half of which was eaten up by a trip to Ireland with some of his brothers for a bit of a reunion in the town where his mother was born. And he took along my son Taylor, who was working as his assistant at the time. And so, they went from Ireland to Spain. My dad said, ‘We don't have the time to walk it. So, let's drive.’ So, they began to drive along the Camino, they stopped in a town called Burgos along the way. And they went into what's called an Albergues or a Casa Rurales to spend the night - a place that takes in pilgrims. And this young lady walked in named Julia, and she and my son locked eyes, and he fell in love with her, decided to move to Spain the following year. And he lived there for nine years, and they eventually married. They now have a child, my granddaughter.

But going back, I would visit him in Spain. And I would say, ‘Well, who are these pilgrims? And what are they doing? And what is this Camino thing?’ Around the same time my dad said how about we make a movie over there? And I thought, Well, seems like the only way I'm going to see my son is actually shoot a film in Spain. So, I began to develop the story with Martin. I felt like I'd kind of lost my own son on the Camino. So, what if it's darker than that? What if it's an older son, and he leaves his studies? He's studying cultural anthropology at Berkeley, and he has dreams of being in the academic world for the foreseeable future, but he has this shift. And he says, ‘Hey, I need to go out and see the world. I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to teach it.’ And so, he's a world traveler. This thing happens to him, he dies during his travels on the Camino. And the father has to go over there and retrieve the body. My dad says, ‘That's great. Go with that.’

So, I began to explore that story. And then I stumbled on Jack Hitt’s book Off the Road. And in fact, I had created the character of Tom with grieving the son, creating the character of Daniel, the character of Sarah, the Dutchman - because I had a friend who was a crazy sort of bon vivant Dutch guy who is very similar to the Joost character - but I didn't have my fourth member of the Wizard of Oz. I needed the writer who was looking for his brain.

And, and so I stumbled on Jack Hitt’s book, and I said, ‘What if Jack Hitt was the guy writing this book, and he's our fourth member of this troupe?’ And so I called Jack and I said, ‘I love this book. It won't be you. But it will be a sort of an amalgamation of what you were doing. And this new character who's an Irishman.’ And he said, ‘Great!’ And I said, ‘There are a lot of stories in your book that I want to explore. I don't know which ones, can we agree to say that this was inspired by stories from the book?’ and he said, ‘That's great.’ So, the script itself is I would say 75% from my imagination, and my storytelling, and then 25% Jack. But it is essentially a version of him portrayed in the film.

Sadie: Yeah, I love that journey and the roundabout way of staying connected to your son, but also doing something with your dad that's so profound like this and also the Jack character’s writerly journey in this movie.

Emilio: Well, he’s you know, the skeptic, right? And the guy that is just the contrarian has his own issues with the church, and yet, is so profoundly moved when he finally reaches Santiago at the end, he can't find the words. And furthermore, he says that writers will always want the last word, it's like, I can't compete with this. There are no words to describe where I'm at, at the end of my journey.

Sadie: Exactly, exactly. It hits on so many levels. In terms of character development amongst this troupe, what was your approach?

Emilio: Well, it's interesting. The movie is unique for me for a lot of reasons. I mean, first of all, it's a movie about walking. And that's why we got no traction in Hollywood when I started to take the very few meetings that I did. Once I realized it was a dead end, they would say, ‘Oh, where's the love interest? Where's this? Where's the car chase?’’ And I said, ‘No, no. These people walk.’ And they said, ‘What do you mean? They're gonna walk for 500 miles?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ They said, ‘No, no, no, get out of our office.’

But what's interesting, and I was talking to my father about this, it's like, when we take these meetings at the studios, or with executives, and we talk about story, and we talk about character arcs, they want to see characters change over the course of two hours. So, I sort of posit this, how many of your friends that you've been friends with for a long time - 20 years, 30 years? I don't know how old you are, so I don't know - I have friends in my life that I've had for 50 years, and they have not changed. There is no character arc with them. They have not changed; these people are the same. I mean, of course, they've had major things happen in their lives. And there have been shifts. One guy I've known since the second grade, he's the same guy. High school, same now as older adults. He's the same dude. There's been no real arc. And so, for me, I always find it funny when a studio asks that.

In this movie, we come to the end of it, and again, this is not a spoiler alert, but when the Dutchman says, ‘I needed a new suit anyway,’ it’s him acknowledging the fact that I am just OK the way I am. And I guess in this world where everybody's changing their looks, or using filters or doing whatever to their faces and bodies to what they think is self-improvement. It's like isn't it just OK to be exactly who you are? To look exactly the way you look? Do not try to look like somebody else or be like somebody else. 

And maybe the short answer is no, because obviously, we see evidence of that all around us. But what if we were to embrace that alternatively? What if we were to say it's OK? And listen, you know, there are days I get up and I look in the mirror, ‘Oh, my God, I need more eye cream!’ [laughs] Or I need to whiten my teeth or whatever is bothering me in the moment, but the fact of the matter is, I'm the same guy I was when I was 18,19, 20 years old. Obviously older, and I don't know about any wiser, but I'm intrigued by the fact that change happens, I think at a much slower rate than people want to admit. And these great epiphanies are sometimes, you know, as lasting as New Year's resolutions. [laughs] By January 10, it's like we've moved on with that. Nah, you know, what? Cake tastes pretty good. Or you know what? That beer is still calling. [laughs]

Sadie: [laughs] I totally understand that. From that perspective and playing back all these moments from the film and just these characters that they are trying to search for something but then again I guess they're just trying to find the confirmation of like, ‘Yeah, I know this is who I am. And at the end of this trek, I just have to deal with myself. And that's OK.’

Emilio: And it's interesting, too, in the Camino, and this is just anecdotal, but, you know, there are people who do the Camino together, or people you meet on the Camino that you'd find along the way and travel with, sometimes those bonds are deeper than marital bonds. They're deeper than collegiate bonds. They're deeper on so many levels, because you're walking together in unison, and you're walking with a similar goal. But whatever goal you may have thought you had, when you start the Camino oftentimes has changed, has shifted by the time you get there. I mean, I've watched pilgrims arrive in Santiago de Compostela and dropped to their knees, as the Dutchman does, and start weeping out in the square just openly. And it's not just the fact that they completed the journey. But something happened inside.

And talk about sort of like a character arc, you can't, I don't think, articulate in a screenplay. I think it's just something that happens, something that is on such a deeply personal level, that I don't know if you could distill it down to either a word or a moment on screen, but it's something profound that you witness. And maybe that's all we need to do is to sort of bear witness to what happens to people when they get to that place. And I was, again, fortunate enough to be there when people were just almost having this out of body experience.

Sadie: It's that feeling. And I think that's what resonates in this film is that once they get there is that you feel that, the Dutchman, secretly behind everyone's back drops to his knees, but you feel that.

Emilio: Right. And he was funny, he fought me on it. He's like, ‘Why do I have to do it? Why aren't the rest doing it?’ I said, ‘Because you're the least likely to. No one will expect it. You're the least likely to do it, it can only be you.’ And he says, ‘Ah, very well.’ So, he did it. And every time I see it, I just lose my shit. It's just ahh.

Sadie: It's so beautiful. Another interesting aspect about this film is how we process grief, and in this instance, it’s how Tom is processing his grief. And with your father Martin's performance, it can be very overwhelming and bizarre in most cases, and through his journey, I feel like there's this great harmony of his acting and this character against your direction and with your DP Juanmi [Azpiroz]. At the start of the movie, he's kind of shrouded in darkness. And then that first instance, when he spreads Daniel's ashes, it's like his world brightens up against that sunset. I would just love to hear about that visual translation process over the journey of this movie.

Emilio: Well, you know, Tom starts out as not a man of many words. He's kind of curmudgeonly. He's isolated. He's a country club guy. His idea of a day away from work is with a foursome out on the golf course, among like-minded individuals and he gets horrible news that transports him to Spain to collect the body of his son. And it's again, I think oftentimes when you are estranged from someone, and they pass and you realize the last exchange you had with them was not pleasant, was a fight, was an unkind word, and if you could just take those moments back, and I think that there is so much regret in Martin's performance, so much regret in his face about, ‘Man, if I had just walked to him and met him at a commonplace that maybe we would have gotten there together,’ and without having to now deal with the regret of that after his passing.

And so in many ways, I think he makes the walk to meet his son over the course of the film and it was those quiet moments and keeping the camera on him and trusting the fact that what's happening in those quiet moments with him, were genuine and more authentic. And the DP, Juanmi, he's just a lovely man. He and I, we just sort of figured out where the camera wanted to be and trusted our actors that the shot can hang. This is a two-hour movie. And we're talking about traveling 500 miles and so it can linger. And we should see these wonderful scapes that he's walking through and this wonderful countryside and let him move through them. Because in the beginning, he doesn't really pay attention to them. He's sort of moving through them. He's on this mission. And by the end, the ophthalmologist is finally seeing the world.

Sadie: Again, it just hits on so many levels. Just all of these threads that you have in there. Speaking of filming on location, wearing your director's hat out there, were there any moments of maybe creative liberation, or maybe even constraints that maybe ended up becoming like a creative beacon for you?

Emilio: When we started, every person that we met with, whether it was production or with Filmax, which was our Spanish production partner, even the crew were saying, ‘you're going to shoot in the north of Spain, it's going to rain every day.’ It rained I think once maybe a day and a half it rained. One of those days was when Martin's character goes into the river, so that didn't matter. [laughs] He was already wet. But we were blessed by weather. We were blessed by having a small crew.

We moved as a pilgrim moves on the Camino. Of course, there were 50 of us, which by Hollywood standards is a small crew. But there were 50 of us and we moved probably 200 to 250 miles of the Camino ourselves. Because for us, it was you know you would walk through a village as a pilgrim, you walk through the village one time and that's part of your daily walk. With the crew, it's like, OK, take one take 2, 4, 5, and now the coverage. So, we would travel the same path, you know, 10, 12, 15 times just to get the shot. So, we got our miles in, we got our steps, [laughs] as it were on the Camino.

We had a lot of pushback from the autonomous governments that we traveled through. There was certain wording in the script about, we didn't talk about separatists, but we were shooting in the Basque Country, and there was a couple of lines of dialogue that they opposed. And so, we made adjustments. 

Spain is an interesting country. They start by telling you what you can't do and how it's never going to happen. And then [laughs] they come around to it, and then you do it. And then they say, ‘OK, well we knew you could do it all along.’ [laughs] In that particular region in Basque Country in Nevada, they now have plaques that are dedicated to this is where The Way filmed and this is where The Way shot here and there are photographs and I don't know what you call them but they're almost like a way marker, but it's also a tourist stop. 

So, if you're a pilgrim walking on the Camino, you can stop at these installations, as I guess that's what you call them, and there's a memento for where we shot and what scenes we shot in that particular space. So now, they all want to take credit for it, they see the value of not only the economic driver that the film was, but the cultural value of having been there and made the film there.

Sadie: Yeah, the beauty of indie filmmaking and again, the power of storytelling, it finds a way.

Emilio: It does indeed. And now we add this Rick Steves component, who's his own storyteller, and he's kind of a wild man as well. And he's now part of the additional added value with this Fathom event. And we made pilgrimage to Rick, a few weeks ago, we shot this added value…but it's a 20-minute conversation that follows the film, which is about faith, and culture, and travel and the difficulties in making the film and it's a lovely conversation. I think it's something that will help audiences sort of embrace the movie in a more contemporary setting.

Sadie: Twelve years later, this movie definitely has stood the test of time. And I feel like it's something that we could all use and find a way to disconnect from our devices and just be. In this day and age, and with the last couple years we've had, what do you hope audiences take away from this film now?

Emilio: Well, I think the film is, as you say, I think it's resonating differently with people now on the heels of the pandemic. I think there was isolationism and tribalism already in effect in this country - a self-imposed isolation. And now you have on top of that, a mandated isolation. And I think that that is what we've seen politically, what we've seen emotionally, and how we've seen people acting out of those double whammy of isolations, and tribalism. I think it's almost too much to bear. I think because we've been so wrapped up in our own crap, that we have stopped grieving. And we've lost over a million Americans. When do we grieve that loss?

And I think the best way to grieve is to take the time to grieve, no matter how you process your grief, but to do that, on the Camino, on pilgrimage, whether it's in Spain, or a Camino around Central Park, or through your neighborhood, but to take that time to reflect and not just for exercise, but to properly grieve, and to think about your life and the path that you're on. I think that that is where the movie is really landing with people now way more than it did 12 years ago. And I think because of that, the movie just feels timely and timeless.

And it's really finding its own path and its own journey now after sort of getting lost in the shuffle. Not only legally, but just sort of lost in the shuffle of so many independent films that were out during that time that it's now able to kind of rise above sort of the noise and find a place and I'm just really grateful to Fathom Events for putting it out - we're out on almost 1,000 screens. I mean, the movie never got that kind of release when we first came out. So, they're really amplifying this in a way that I certainly never imagined when I got the rights back to it. I thought, ‘Well, OK, we'll be happy just to get it back up on some streaming platforms. If that happens, thank God. At least people will be able to see it again.’ And now this is a whole ‘nother level that I had not expected, certainly. And I'm just I'm grateful that the film's gonna get another shot.

Sadie: It’s the communal experience that we all need. I know that you're working on a sequel, what are you hoping to explore with that story?

Emilio: In the end of the movie, and this was something Rick Steves pointed out, which I thought was, again, my intention when we went to Morocco. We went to Morocco for one shot. It was a 600-millimeter lens, pointed down a street in the souk and I wanted to find Martin, Tom's character evolved and a citizen of the world - that the father became the son, that he's now a world traveler.

And so, in part two, we follow that trajectory, and we find him working in Nigeria with the NGO medicines on Fontiers and Doctors Without Borders and he's performing cataract surgeries because of course he's an ophthalmologist and that's what his training is. And he's in a remote village and a cargo plane drops off supplies for the surgeries and mail for the villagers and for the doctors there. 

And in that mail pouch is not only Jack's book, so Jack finally writes his book on the Camino and there it is, warts and all, but there's some information in that book that Tom finds very, very disturbing and very troubling. And he leaves Nigeria for his next mission which is to find Jack and to find some answers that were unanswered during his Camino experience but are teased in the book. And it is his reconnection to family and reconnection with a couple of our previous Camino cast members. We're going to add several more. But more of a global journey. We start in Nigeria, we go to Dublin, we go to Amsterdam, we go to Brussels, and then we go back to Spain. So, it's a bigger film. It still will be independent in spirit, but we're looking to put some bigger pieces together to make this a larger canvas. 

Fathom Events will be re-releasing The Way on May 16, 2023. Click here to find a theater near you.