Charlie Sheen's Reflections on Missing Out on a Major Role
Charlie Sheen has shared his feelings about being passed over for the lead role in the 1989 film Born on the Fourth of July, which he described as a "betrayal." The movie, directed by Oliver Stone, starred Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, a decorated Marine veteran whose life story inspired the film. However, before Cruise landed the role, Sheen was initially in talks to take on the lead.
Sheen, now 60, recalled that Oliver Stone had expressed interest in him for the role. “The thing that was weird is [Stone] said, ‘You know, I want you to do Born on the Fourth.’ And we had meetings about it and we had a dinner with Ron Kovic. And then I stopped hearing from [Stone], we stopped talking about it, and I reach out to Oliver, and I’m told that he’s in Cuba,” Sheen said during an interview with Graham Bensinger.
It wasn’t long before Sheen received a call from his older brother, Emilio, who delivered the news. “He says, ‘Hey, man. You sitting down?’ And I think somebody died, right?” Sheen remembered. “I’m like, ‘No, what’s going on?’ He says, ‘Cruise is doing Born on the Fourth,’” Sheen continued.
Sheen admitted that while the rejection was a “big deal,” it was the “betrayal factor of it all” that hurt the most. “So I was like, ‘Okay, all right.’ You know, Oliver’s been a fan of Tom’s for a long time. It’s a different movie if Tom does it than if I do it,” Sheen said.
He noted that although he didn’t sign a contract, there was a handshake. “You can’t lose something you never had,” he added. “I didn’t sign a contract [but] there was a handshake.” Sheen revealed that they had even signed a napkin, stating, “My word was honored between us,” but he said, “it’s fine.”
Sheen later ran into Stone at a bar and addressed the ordeal for the first time. He claimed that Stone told him he felt like Sheen had lost “passion” and “interest” in the movie. In response, Sheen asked, “I didn’t see you. How do you know how much passion I lost or interest that evaporated if we never talked about it again?”
The Independent has contacted Stone’s representative for comment. Despite the past tension, Sheen assured there was no bad blood between him and Stone. “It wasn’t like a thing, where, you know, I’m going to talk s about him,” the Platoon* actor said. “Because then you see the movie and you’re like, ‘Oh s*. Ok. He turned it into that.’”
Praising Cruise’s acting in the movie, Sheen argued that the Mission: Impossible star should have won the Oscar for his performance. Cruise was nominated for Best Actor at the 1990 Academy Awards for his portrayal of Kovic, but ended up losing the category to Daniel Day-Lewis for My Left Foot.
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