Laurence Fishburne saved Emilio Estevez from drowning in quicksand when they were teenagers

‘We had only known each other a couple of days’

Emilio Estevez has recounted the time Laurence Fishburne saved him from drowning in quicksand.

Appearing on The Jennifer Hudson Show this week alongside his father Martin Sheen, Estevez recalled the incident which happened in the Philippines.

Estevez had been visiting his dad on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, when he and actor Fishburne were both teenagers.

“We had only known each other a couple of days, and this was in the Philippines,” Estevez recalled. “He says, ‘Hey there’s this little boat, let’s go out on it,’ and I said, ‘Sure.’

“So we were out on this boat together and we started getting too close to the shore and I said, ‘Well let me jump out, I’ll push us off shore,’” he said.

“I jumped out and it was like quicksand mud and I was just sinking. I saw Fishburne looking at me just saying, ‘Grab my hand!’ He pulled me back up.

Estevez said that he and Fishburne were “bonded ever since”, while Sheen said that he later “called Mr Fishburne to thank him for saving my son’s life” because neither boy mentioned the incident at the time.

Sheen has a different surname to his son after deciding to act under the name Martin Sheen early in his career on the advice of others.

Fishburne (left) with Estevez’s father Martin Sheen (Getty Images)

Last year, Sheen – whose real name is Ramon Estévez – admitted that he regretted not using his birth name publicly.

“That’s one of my regrets. I never changed my name officially,” he said. It’s still Ramon Estévez on my birth certificate. It’s on my marriage license, my passport, driver’s license.”

Discussing why he changed his name, Sheen said: “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.”