According to the DVD extra feature “Money Never Sleeps: The Making of Wall Street” (vial Mental Floss), Charlie Sheen (who had worked with Stone previously on “Platoon”) said, “It was interesting having my dad play my dad.” He said that when Stone gave him the options of Lemmon and Stone the elder, he replied, “Oh, Jack Lemmon’s a genius, but my dad’s my dad, and he’s kind of a genius, too.” (According to a 2012 Vanity Fair article, “Wall Street” was a tribute to Stone’s own father, who was a stockbroker during the Great Depression.)
In a 2022 Role Recall video from Yahoo!, Martin Sheen commented on getting cast in “Wall Street” because of his son. He said:
“Charlie put the bug in [Stone’s] ear — wouldn’t it be a good idea if my old man actually played my old man in the movie, and Oliver thought that that might work. He knew … what I did for a living … I guess he figured he didn’t have to go that far. But yeah, that was a wonderful experience. I’ve always been grateful to Oliver Stone for putting Charlie and I together like that because it was a very, very, very special time to work with Charlie.”
Not only did they act together on “Wall Street,” but they made a joke about it in the 1993 comedy “Hot Shots! Part Deux.” As their characters pass each other in boats, they yell, “I loved you in ‘Wall Street.”
