Sheen's performance led to Francis Ford Coppola's casting him in a lead role as U.S. Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard in 1979's "Apocalypse Now", gaining him wide recognition. Filming in the Philippine jungle in the typhoon season of 1976, Sheen admitted he was not in great shape and was drinking heavily. For the film's legendary opening sequence in a Saigon hotel room, Sheen's portrayal of Willard as heavily intoxicated was aided by Sheen's celebrating his 36th birthday on-set that day, and being actually drunk. Twelve months into filming, Sheen suffered a minor heart attack and had to crawl out to a road for help. While he was recovering, his younger brother Joe Estevez stood in for him in a number of long shots and in some of the voice-overs. Sheen was able to resume filming a few weeks later. In 1979, Sheen acted in "The Final Countdown" with Kirk Douglas, another actor with family connections to Bermuda (Diana Dill, Douglas's first wife and the mother of their sons Michael Douglas and Joel Douglas was a Bermudian).