In the 1989 war film, Tom Cruise portrayed Ron Kovic. Charlie Sheen recently talked about his reaction when he learned that Tom Cruise had been chosen to play the lead in Born on the Fourth of July. On the In Depth with Graham Bensinger podcast, the 60-year-old actor related how his brother, Emilio Estevez, told him the news. Because of their working history and earlier discussions with director Oliver Stone, Sheen thought he had the part at the time.
“He calls me, Emilio. “Hey, man,” he says. Are you seated? And I believe someone passed away, am I correct? Sheen recalled the episode on October 30. “No, what’s going on?” I ask myself. “Cruise is doing Born on the Fourth,” he declares. “I adore that Emilio believed I needed to be seated in order to receive the news he believed would cause me to pass out. What are we doing here, really? It’s a film,” he continued. To put things in perspective, Sheen had already become well-known thanks to successful movies like Wall Street (1987) and Platoon (1986), both of which were also directed by Oliver Stone.
The 1976 memoirs of Ron Kovic, a Vietnam War veteran who became an anti-war activist after being paralyzed in battle, served as the inspiration for Born on the Fourth of July. Sheen admitted that even though it was ultimately “just a role,” the pain of feeling “betrayed” over losing the gig was unavoidable.
