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Stage blood leaks through Kiefer Sutherland's white tunic as the cameras in the Hofburg Palace stop rolling. While director Stephen Herek (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) prepares for take two, a masseur administers heat gel to Wincott, a deft fencer nursing a sore fighting arm. ''In theory I'm the best,'' he smiles, ''but I'm the bad guy so I have to lose.''

''Michael is the showiest fencer,'' says fencing master Bob Anderson, 71, who began his career coaching Errol Flynn. ''Athos is a rugged, hard fighter. Aramis is a technician, which is exactly what Charlie is. And O'Donnell has a good memory-he remembers whole sequences.''

In the throne room, Sutherland strips off his shirt and, leaning against a Corinthian column, offers his tattooed right arm to a special-effects person, who removes the exploded squib of blood and attaches a fresh one. Sutherland lights a cigarette, looking less than eager to return to battle. ''Charlie's a much more elegant fencer than I,'' he says.

At the moment, the more elegant fencer is eating a KitKat bar in his trailer and looking remarkably clear-eyed despite tales of many late Vienna nights. ''It's not like I grew up flipping channels and ever ran across a fencing match,'' says Sheen. But he does admit to enjoying the ''fluidity and grace'' of swordsmanship more than another of Musketeers' requirements, horseback riding. ''I'm not a big horse guy. Kiefer's the horse person. He trains thoroughbreds in Montana.''

The gamest member of the ensemble may have been O'Donnell, who arrived in Austria newly bulked up and ready for some nerve-racking stunt work-including a duel atop a 120-foot-high palace parapet. ''It was scary,'' says the actor, who wore a safety harness under his pants while fencing on the castle roof. ''If I had fallen, I would have dangled upside down and slammed into the (side of the) building.''

But O'Donnell was less than fully prepared for the off-camera late-night revels of his older costars. ''They're always ready to go out,'' he says, slightly awed. ''They definitely like to have a good time. When money isn't an object, you can have as much fun as you want.''

''That lad's got youthful energy and that eager look in his eyes,'' says Sheen, 28. ''We've been around a bit. This is my tenth year in films. We're breaking him in slow.''

As hard as the young guns may have played, Roth insists that ''there were no excuses when people came to work.'' Whatever the guys had been up to, ''they always showed up on time.''

It's no coincidence that most of the talk on the Musketeers set is about the boys; although the filmmakers don't like to admit it, The Three Musketeers' female characters are barely a factor. Gabrielle Anwar's Queen Anne and Julie Delpy's lady-in-waiting are virtual cameos, and even Rebecca De Mornay's Milady De Winter has been softened from the evil personified by Faye Dunaway in Richard Lester's 1974 version. ''We wanted it to be more Raiders than a romance,'' says Roth, who is hoping to court ''a full-family, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids audience.''

Packing in the youngsters will be crucial, since at more than $30 million, Musketeers is among the costliest live-action films in Disney's history. With that audience in mind, the producers looked once more toward Robin Hood for inspiration, commissioning a Bryan Adams theme song. They also shortened a death plunge and an impaling in order to win a PG rating; that blood on Sutherland's shoulder is as sanguine as the movie gets. And they're officially not nervous about the film's Nov. 12 debut on more than 2,000 screens, a Disney record. ''Two generations have never seen this,'' says Birnbaum. ''That's our core audience.''

But the studio isn't quite as relaxed as Sheen. ''It can't hurt to be in Disney's big Thanksgiving-Christmas picture as one of the top cast,'' he says casually of the ensemble role, for which he collected a $5 million paycheck. ''If it flies, I'm on board. And if it sinks,'' he adds, ''it ain't my fault.''


Posted Nov 12, 1994 | Published in issue #196 Nov 12, 1993 | Order Article Reprints
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