Why West Wing's Martin Sheen Regrets Changing His Name

Martin Sheen, who played President Bartlet on The West Wing, regrets caving to pressures to change his stage name to its more anglicized version.

Why West Wing's Martin Sheen Regrets Changing His Name

After a career spanning over seven decades, The West Wing actor Martin Sheen looks back and regrets changing his name. Sheen’s long and storied career has encompassed roles in film, television, and the theater. His star-making turn came in Francis Ford Coppola’s war odyssey, Apocalypse Now, in which Sheen played Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard. He’s followed that with roles in The Departed, Catch Me if You Can, Wall Street, Gandhi, and Badlands, to name a few. Arguably his most memorable role, though, is that of been Jed Bartlet, one of the greatest fictional presidents of all time, which Sheen played across seven seasons of the Aaron Sorkin-created political drama The West Wing.

Sheen was born Ramon Antonio Gerardo Estevez in Dayton, Ohio to immigrant parents. His father Francisco Estevez was from Spain, and his mother Mary-Ann Phelan was from Ireland. His was a large family, and he was the seventh of 10 children. Although initially dissuaded from the career by his father, both Martin and his younger brother Joe decided to pursue acting. Now 81 years old, Sheen’s career is barely slowing down, and he just recently finished a seven-season stint on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie.

A recent interview with Closer Weekly sees Sheen looking back at his career and having second thoughts about whether he’d made the right decision all those years ago. Although he clarifies he never went so far as to change it legally, he still expresses regret for changing his stage name. Check out the full quote below:

“That’s one of my regrets. I never changed my name officially. It’s still Ramon Estevez on my birth certificate. It’s on my marriage license, my passport, driver’s license. Sometimes you get persuaded when you don’t have enough insight or even enough courage to stand up for what you believe in, and you pay for it later. But, of course, I’m only speaking for myself.”

When it came to his own children, Sheen didn’t want them to regret making a similar decision. He and his wife, actor/producer Janet Templeton, have four children, all who became actors. Although he advised his son Charlie to keep the family name, he adopted his father’s stage name and went as Charlie Sheen. Martin did, however, convince his son Emilio to go by Emilio Estevez, despite the protestations of his son’s agent, a fact Sheen stated he was grateful for. Despite the difference, the Sheen patriarch has kept a close relationship to both his sons, and will appear alongside Charlie in an upcoming show from Entourage creator Doug Ellin.

Starting his career in earnest in the 1960s, Martin faced the brutal reality that perhaps despite passing ethnically as a white actor, having a Spanish sounding surname would have likely kept him from the major starring roles he ultimately secured. As a young actor wanting to building a Hollywood career, the pressure to change his name would have been very strong. It’s possible Sheen’s career could have been similar to the one he has now, but for comparison, his brother Joe kept the Estevez name and his roles have mostly villains and supporting characters in B-movies. Thankfully, recent years have seen a larger cultural embrace of diversity, leading to actors like Chiwetel Ejiofor, Saoirse Ronan, and Lupita Nyong’o being able to keep their names without resorting to easier to pronounce or more anglicized versions. If The West Wing star had begun his career now, it’s good to know Ramon Estevez wouldn’t have had the same roadblocks as before. Unfortunately, Sheen will never get the change to know what could have been.