Emilio Estevez interview

For the Writers Guild of America, west, Dylan Callaghan talks to Emilio Estevez about Bobby, his first film as writer-director.

When you started this script, I read that you got terribly stuck at about 30 pages. Your brother then encouraged you to finish it, so you rented a cheap motel room off the 101 freeway where it turned out the desk clerk was a woman who was at the Ambassador rally the night Bobby Kennedy was killed?

It's absolutely true. Her name was Dianne. I interviewed her three times during the three weeks that I stayed there. She had married two young men to keep them from going to Vietnam. She had spent that day canvassing out in Glendale and Pasadena and was in the ballroom for the victory speech. She heard the shots and said it was as if the rug had been pulled out from underneath an entire generationÂ… I think that's a pretty accurate description of what happened after that night.

Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore in Bobby, written and directed by Emilio Estevez (Photo © 2006 The Weinstein Company)