Navy SEALs - Presskit - Cast Biographies

MICHAEL BIEHN

Biography

To Navy SEAL Commander James Curran, the decision was clear-cut. To take the time to destroy a cache of stolen Stinger missiles, during a rescue operation in an Arab stronghold, would risk lives.

Now, though he must finish the job, wading through a welter of conflicting intelligence to defuse a mounting terrorist threat. Michael Biehn stars as Curran with Charlie Sheen as his brash junior officer and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer as a TV journalist with powerful links to Middle-Eastern leaders, in Orion Pictures' NAVY SEALS. The film was inspired by the exploits of America's most secret and sophisticated special forces.

Curran is the second SEAL commander Biehn has portrayed. He played the psychotic Lt. Coffey in James Cameron's The Abyss, and now he plays Lt. Curran, a conscientious officer who values the sanctity of life. "That concern puts his career in jeopardy," says Biehn. "ultimately, he has to take matters into his own hands by turning to a civilian...the TV reporter...for privileged information. He takes quite a few chances with her." That the reporter is portrayed by Joanne Whalley- Kilmer was among the "pleasures of making NAVY SEALS", says Biehn. "I saw her in Scandal and thought she was fabulous," he recalls.

Born in Anniston, Alabama, Biehn grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. When his family moved to Lake Havasu on the Arizona-California border, the teenaged Biehn entered a local speech tournament, where he impressed the dean of the University of Arizona's drama department. The result was a college scholarship.

After two years of academia, however, Biehn left to enter acting classes with Los Angeles drama coach Vincent Chase, whose roster included Rick Rossovich and Bill Paxton. The trio became not only good friends but also co-actors in five films, including NAVY SEALS.

"Working with Bill and Rick was especially beneficial for this picture," says Biehn. "SEALs are a team, and we've worked together so often that we already know what to expect from each other. Hopefully, it shows up there on the screen."

Biehn made his film debut as the persistent pursuer of Lauren Bacall in The Fan. That led to The Lords of Discipline, in which he played a member of a secret society at a Southern military school.

Then came a series of starring roles for writer/director James Cameron, starting with the 1984 science-fiction hit, The Terminator, in which he tracked murderous android Arnold Schwarzenegger from the distant future to our own century. He followed as the cool, quiet warrior of Cameron's Aliens who escorted Sigourney Weaver to her nightmare past; the troubled husband of Demi Moore in the mystic thriller The Seventh Sign; and the persistent district attorney--determined to nail a serial killer--in William Friedkin's Rampage.

In addition to his film work, Biehn has appeared in the television miniseries Deadly Intentions, the PBS special In a Shallow Grave.

NAVY SEALS is an Orion Pictures release of a Brenda Feigen Production of a Lewis Teague Film. Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer star in the topical adventure, directed by Lewis Teague and produced by Brenda Feigen and Bernard Williams. The screenplay is by Chuck Pfarrer and Gary Goldman.

CHARLIE SHEEN

Biography

Off duty hours, Lt. (jg) Dale Hawkins may seem as playful as a seal pup. But that same brashness takes on a professional cutting edge when he swings into action as a member of SEAL Team 12 in Orion Pictures' NAVY SEALS. As played by Charlie Sheen, he is recklessly daring in combat until his bravado costs a comrade's life--during a covert Middle-Eastern mission--and he is forced to face some painful truths about himself.

Sheen stars with Michael Biehn and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer in the new adventure inspired by the exploits of America's most secret and sophisticated special forces. It marks his first screen return to military service since he portrayed PFC Chris Taylor, the college-trained, war-shocked young grunt of Platoon. The 1987 Oscar winner, written and directed by Vietnam-vet Oliver Stone, brought Sheen to the forefront among the new generation of rising young stars.

The son of actor Martin Sheen and the younger brother of Emilio and Ramon Estevez, he was born in New York and raised in California, surrounded by theatre-conscious friends and family. In fact, he made his acting debut at nine, in his father's unforgettable television triumph, The Execution of Private Slovik.

He was, however, much more interested in sports. He played basketball, football and golf while attending Santa Monica High School, and was so taken with baseball that he spent his summers at the Mickey Owen Baseball School in Springfield, Missouri.

("If I weren't an actor, I might be playing minor-league ball right now," he says, admitting to a special fondness for his roles in Eight Men Out and Major League.)

It was an eight-month stay in the Philippines, during the filming of Apocalypse Now, that led him toward an alternate profession. Watching Francis Coppola work with Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall and his father heightened young Sheen's interest in both acting and directing. Returning home, he dusted off his Super-8 camera, talked his brothers, as well as friends Chris and Sean Penn and Rob and Chad Lowe, into performing, and ended up with over 200 movies. (He would later branch out into 16mm films with the short R.P.G., and write, produce and direct the music video Nicks.)

His acting debut in feature films came in 1982 with Grizzly II: The Predator. Roles in Red Dawn and The Boys Next Door followed, along with cameo appearance in John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off and brother Emilio's Wisdom. After a co-starring role as campus hero Cappy in Lucas, Sheen played his first starring role in The Wraith, and followed with his pivotal role in Platoon. He has since starred in Three for the Road, as wily stockbroker Bud Fox in Wall Street, the western Young Guns, and the baseball epics Eight Men Out and Major League. He teamed with family members for Men at Work, co-starring brother Emilio, and Cadence, co-starring brother Ramon and directed by father Martin.

Sheen has also starred in the television drama Silence of the Heart and appeared in one of Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

Preparing for NAVY SEALS recalled the conditioning Sheen underwent prior to filming Platoon. But where the former simulated Vietnam combat in the jungles of the Philippines ("to get that hollow-eyed, brain-numb look and feel"), the NAVY SEALS cast was shipped to Winchester, Virginia, for indoctrination.

"It was very extensive and very physical," recalls Sheen. "The concentration this time was on urban combat, door-to-door and hand-to-hand. We learned how to handle weapons, how the chain of command worked, and the scope of international terrorism. It helped us understand the SEALs' formidable presence on the world scene, and the men's unusual sense of duty. Once a SEAL retires, you know, he takes an oath never to reveal certain information about the group's activities. If asked about any operation, he just says, If I told you that, I'd have to kill you."

"That can stop a conversation pretty fast."

JOANNE WHALLEY-KILMER

Biography

Lebanese-American reporter Claire Verens is a respected journalist whose news sources are sacrosanct. Even the offer of a rare privileged look into the world of Navy SEALs training fails to soften her stance. Then comes a terrorist attack on an international peace mission, and Claire Verens agrees to help the SEALs penetrate a terrorist stronghold, in Orion Pictures' NAVY SEALS.

Joanne Whalley-Kilmer stars as the coolly competent reporter, opposite Michael Biehn as Lt. Cmdr. James Curran and Charlie Sheen as his brash junior officer, Lt. Dale Hawkins. The global adventure was inspired by the exploits of the American special forces whose name is an acronym for Sea/Air/Land operations almost anywhere in the world.

After researching her role by interviewing journalists who have covered the Middle East, and by reading reams of news copy, Whalley-Kilmer chose to make Claire Verens "an amalgam of reporters I met and talked with. Every one of them would have tried very hard, like Claire, to get first-hand information on the top-secret SEALs as well as the terrorist factions of the Middle East."

She admires the character, moreover, not just because "she has her life so well sorted out, professionally and personally," but also because Claire Verens is the kind of woman she has not had an opportunity to play before. The British actress is best known to international audiences for her portrayal of Christine Keeler, the notorious party girl whose affair with a member of Parliament nearly brought down Her Majesty's government, in Scandal. The film, which also starred John Hurt and Bridget Fonda, won critical as well as commercial success, and sent Whalley-Kilmer's career into high gear.

A product of the London stage, Whalley-Kilmer left her home in the north of England as a teenager to appear in a season of Edward Bond productions at the West End's Royal Court Theatre, for which she won an Olivier Award nomination. After starring in a production of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, she moved into British television, where she co-starred as Nurse Mills in Dennis Potter's award-winning series The Singing Detective, then starred in the BBC thriller Edge of Darkness.

She made her British film debut in Alan Bleasdale's satire, No Surrender, then followed opposite Anthony Hopkins in The Good Father and Christopher Lambert in To Kill a Priest. It was her next role, however--as the warrior princess in Ron Howard's Willow--which not only marked her American film bow but also introduced her to her future husband, American actor Val Kilmer.

She has since starred with Liam Neeson in The Big Man, a film set in Scotland after a devastating coal miner's strike, and returned to the theatre for a New York production of Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw.

Dividing their time between England and America, the Kilmers are building a new adobe home in New Mexico, and also travel extensively between acting assignments on both sides of the Atlantic. They most recently visited the Kenya wilds, and have planned a train excursion across the U.S.S.R.

NAVY SEALS is an Orion Pictures release of a Brenda Feigen Production of a Lewis Teague Film. Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer star in the topical adventure, directed by Lewis Teague and produced by Brenda Feigen and Bemard Williams. The screenplay is by Chuck Pfarrer and Gary Goldman.

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