Powerful feather ducks fly together. Weekly entertainment recently revealed that an upcoming episode of The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers – the new Disney + series based on the beloved 1990s franchise – will bring together coach Gordan Bombay (Emilio Estevez) with several members of his old pee-wee hockey league, including performer Fulton Reed (Elden Henson), striker Connie Moreau (Marguerite Moreau) and the frequently injured Lester Averman (Matt Doherty). But at least one Duck will not attend the meeting: goalkeeper Greg Goldberg, played by Shaun Weiss, was not invited to return. In real life, Weiss battled drug addiction and several arrests before going into recovery in early 2020. The 42-year-old actor reportedly celebrated a year of sobriety last January, and recent photos show him with an appearance happier and healthier.
This news touches Weiss’ former coach on the screen. “I’m terribly proud of him,” Estevez told Yahoo Entertainment, adding that he feels a personal connection with his co-star. “As everyone knows, my family is not immune to this type of scrutiny.” (Estevez’s brother Charlie Sheen has been publicly battling his own addictions.) Estvez also says he didn’t reach out to Weiss while the actor was on his “very personal journey” back to recovery. “I hold him in high regard and I know that being sober for him is obviously a big deal. The first leg of the journey is now under his responsibility and in the last photograph I saw, he looks fabulous. I am encouraged and I am hopeful.” ( See our interview above.)
Having grown up in the industry as the son of two prominent actors – Martin and Janet Sheen – Estevez is well aware of the difficult path that child actors like Weiss have to travel to adulthood. “It is an almost impossible journey,” he says. “Business is difficult for everyone and especially for young people.” And even though Weiss was not invited to participate in the first season of Game changers, Estevez suggests that fans should never say never to a Goldberg cameo. “Steve Brill, the original creator of The Mighty Ducks, and I like to say that the door is always open for any of the Original Ducks to join us, “says the actor, lifting his own vintage shirt from the initial 1992 franchise.” Once overdosed, always overdosed. The Original Ducks are certainly welcome to join us. “
But Game changers it is not only focused on the past: it is also the present. Collecting 25 years after the third and last Powerful ducks film, the 10-episode series reverses the script, making the Mighty Ducks the bad guys and a new team of misfits the brave underdogs. This new team is led by Lauren Graham’s single mother, Alex Marrow, whose hockey-obsessed son Evan (Brady Noon of the hit comedy hit Good guys) is removed from the Ducks and becomes a founding member of the organization called Don’t Bothers. Unable to reserve practice time at one of the big facilities, Alex finds a rundown rink operated by none other than Coach Bombay – the guy who drove the Ducks to greatness all those years ago. But this is not the Bombay that we remember: instead, he gave up hockey and got into the new habit of eating leftover birthday party food.
Estevez says Bombay’s appetite for discarded cake and pizza reflects his sick general state of mind. “He’s eating leftover food and sleeping on the couch in his office and he doesn’t take a shower, it seems. He has no friends or wife or girlfriend and never had children. It’s like, ‘What’s the matter with this guy?’ Well, let’s find out over those 10 episodes what happened and where he was and how he got to this unflattering place. “To try to separate himself from the character, the actor insisted on a healthier alternative to the spoiled cake.” I didn’t want to eat a lot of sugary cake for that scene, so I thought … ‘Can we make corn bread?’ But the corn bread, unless it is soaked with sauce and beans, is very dry, so I’m eating and trying to deliver my lines and the corn bread is falling out of my mouth! It was a big mistake for me to insist on being more healthy . “
A recurring theme in Game changers it is how the current generation of parents has allowed themselves to get too involved in their children’s lives. After Evan is cut from the Ducks, Alex unloads on the coach and the other parents, accusing them of treating youth sports as work rather than fun. “That was something I was really connected to,” says Graham. “Whatever she says, I agree. What are we doing with these kids? Also, that day, Brady told me that as a result of that speech, he found me as funny as Sarah Silverman. I will always keep it!” Estevez, however, says he has observed similar behavior from “showbiz parents” over his decades of experience in the business. “Overparenting and overcoaching is something that you see not only in the world of sports, but also in entertainment.
But Estevez also believes that parents and children can find common ground with the Mighty Ducks’ delayed return, which he describes as a “full circle” moment for him. “The last time I was in a mainstream movie was the year I shot Mighty Ducks 3 and the first installment of Mission Impossible franchise, “he remembers.” Of course, we all know how it ended with Mission Impossible – not good! I went out and did 25 years of independent cinema … and that was fun, but it looks like now is an opportunity to go back to the more mainstream scene. We seem to be at a point where people are feeling nostalgic for different reasons. The country has suffered incredible and painful losses, and I think people want to eat something that looks like comforting food. “
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers opens Friday, March 26 in Disney +.
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