Background and career
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. A leading man in film and television, his accolades include a Golden Globe as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards and three Actor Awards. In 1994, Sheen received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Following in the footsteps of his father Martin Sheen to become an actor, Charlie Sheen made his first credited film appearance in the war drama Red Dawn (1984). He began to gain wider attention and critical acclaim for his dramatic performances in The Boys Next Door (1985), Platoon (1986), Lucas (1986), and Wall Street (1987), as well as for his comedic work in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Major League (1989), and Hot Shots! (1991). His other notable film roles include Eight Men Out (1988), Young Guns (1988), The Rookie (1990), The Three Musketeers (1993), The Arrival (1996), Being John Malkovich (1999), and Scary Movie 3 (2003). In 2000, Sheen replaced Michael J. Fox as the star of ABC's Spin City (2000–2002), portraying Charlie Crawford. He then starred as Charlie Harper on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003–2011). In 2010, Sheen was the highest-paid actor on television, earning US$1.8 million per episode of Two and a Half Men. In March 2011, Sheen was terminated from his Two and a Half Men contract by CBS and Warner Bros. following public substance-abuse problems, marital difficulties and comments made towards the series' creator, Chuck Lorre. In 2015, Sheen publicly revealed that he was HIV positive, which led to an increase in HIV prevention and testing that was dubbed the "Charlie Sheen effect". Post-Two and a Half Men, he starred in the FX sitcom series Anger Management (2012–2014) and the film Machete Kills (2013). In 2025, he was the subject of the Netflix documentary Aka Charlie Sheen and published a New York Times best-selling memoir, The Book of Sheen, which detailed his career and recovery.
Carlos Irwin Estévez was born on September 3, 1965, in New York City, the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen (whose real name is Ramón Estévez) and artist Janet Templeton. His paternal grandparents were emigrants from Galicia (Spain) and Ireland, respectively. Sheen said in 2011 that his father was Catholic and his mother was Southern Baptist. He has two older brothers, Emilio and Ramon, and a younger sister, Renée, all actors. His parents moved to Malibu, California, after Martin's Broadway run in The Subject Was Roses. Sheen's first movie appearance was at age nine in his father's 1974 film The Execution of Private Slovik. Sheen attended Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California, along with Robert Downey Jr., where he was a star pitcher and shortstop for the baseball team. At Santa Monica High School, he showed an early interest in acting, making amateur Super 8 films with his brother Emilio and school friends Rob Lowe and Sean Penn under his birth name. A few weeks before his scheduled graduation from Santa Monica High School, Sheen was expelled from school for poor grades and attendance. He then chose to become an actor, and adopted the stage name Charlie Sheen. His father had earlier adopted the surname Sheen in his acting career, in honor of the Catholic archbishop and theologian Fulton J. Sheen, and Charlie was an English form of his given name Carlos.
Sheen's film career began in 1983, when he was cast to portray Ron in Grizzly II: The Predator, the sequel to the 1976 low-budget horror movie Grizzly, which remained unreleased until 2020. In 1984, he had a role in the John Milius-directed Cold War teen drama Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey. His next theatrical release was The Boys Next Door (1985), directed by Penelope Spheeris. While largely ignored by the public, the film was critically acclaimed. The Los Angeles Times review praised Sheen, by saying he is "marvelous as a kid scared of his own desires--eyes wide open, paralyzed with fear, he looks like a deer caught in the glare of a hunter's headlights". The New York Times review has also praised Sheen's "exceptionally well-acted" performance and compared the film to Badlands (1973), a film starring Charlie's father Martin Sheen for its "lean and unsentimental" atmosphere.
In 1986, Sheen has started to get more attention. He reunited with Jennifer Grey in a small scene in the comedy film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where he played a juvenile delinquent Grey meets in a police station. Sheen intentionally deprived himself of sleep to have a more authentic look. New York Daily News wrote that Sheen "makes a great impact in this one brief scene [more] than anyone else in the movie." Film critic Gene Siskel praised the chemistry between him and Grey. Sheen had a supporting role in the coming-of-age drama Lucas (1986), which got a mostly positive reception. Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times said Sheen has the most difficult role to play in Lucas and his performance avoids the clichés usually associated with teen jock characters. Los Angeles Times review has also praised Sheen, writing that he "exudes naturalness, manages to be handsome without being self-conscious" and surprisingly "emerges as the film's most consistently sympathetic figure." He didn't get much attention for the science fiction film The Wraith (1986), despite playing the titular role, because critics thought he was underused. In a review for The Washington Post, critic Paul Attanasio mentioned that "there is all too little of the quietly charismatic Sheen." Sheen's breakthrough role came in the Oliver Stone-directed Vietnam War drama Platoon (1986). The film was a major commercial and critical success and won four Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. Sheen and the rest of the cast underwent an immersive military‑style boot camp lasting about 30 days, with strict control over food and water, minimal sleep, and blank‑fire exercises to simulate combat stress. Vincent Canby of The New York Times applauded Sheen's performance, saying the character was "beautifully played." The Arizona Republic described the performance as "terrific" and Newsday as "marvellous." Variety review noted the similarities he has with his father Martin, making a comparison to his father's Apocalypse Now performance. Both Platoon and Ferris Bueller were among the ten highest-grossing films of the year in the United States. His first post-Platoon role was in the road film Three for the Road (1987), which did not get much attention; Sheen reportedly called it "the nadir" of his career. Despite negative reviews, the critics described Sheen's performance as one of the stronger points of the film. In the same year, he collaborated with Oliver Stone again by starring opposite Michael Douglas and his father Martin Sheen in the drama Wall Street in which he played the role of Bud Fox, a young and ambitious stockbroker. The film received mostly positive reviews and was a commercial success. The Washington Post review raved about his performance: "the younger Sheen, who walked wide-eyed through Stone's Vietnam, walks with similar innocence through [the film] and with his three-piece determination he's perfect as a greenhorn yuppie playing with the big guns." The Hollywood Reporter review found him "commendably convincing". Roger Ebert was more critical, citing Sheen's performance as the film's only flaw as he "never seems quite relentless enough to move in Gekko's circle". However, in the same year, Ebert praised Sheen's performance in the crime drama No Man's Land as "very good" and "charismatic".
In 1988, Sheen was the part of two ensemble casts, where he played real-life figures. He starred in John Sayles-directed baseball drama film Eight Men Out (1988) as Happy Felsch and opposite his brother Emilio in the western film Young Guns as Richard M. Brewer. In 1989, Sheen, John Fusco, Christopher Cain, Lou Diamond Phillips, Emilio Estévez and Kiefer Sutherland were honored with a Bronze Wrangler for their work on the Young Guns. An avid baseball player since his youth, Sheen has stated that he took the role in the critically acclaimed Eight Men Out not for the money or career but only because of his love for baseball. He passed on Bull Durham to do another baseball comedy film Major League (1989), a critical and commercial success. Sheen's performance as Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, which he also reprised in the 1994 sequel, is often considered to be among his most-known characters. Common Sense Media praised his comedic ability in the first film, by writing "Sheen shines as the rockin' closer with a lot of attitude." Empire magazine review also highlighted Sheen for being "a delightful surprise at light comedy." In 1990, he starred alongside his father and brother, in the films directed by them respectively in the drama film Cadence as a rebellious inmate in a military stockade and in the black comedy film Men at Work as a garbageman who finds himself in trouble. In the same year, he had a cameo role in Dennis Hopper's thriller film Catchfire and a starring role with Clint Eastwood in the buddy cop film The Rookie, directed by Eastwood himself. The Rookie and Sheen's performance got mostly negative reviews. Roger Ebert has criticized Sheen for his "low energy and absent-minded performance". Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly observed: "when Sheen slips over the edge and trashes a bar full of hooligan bikers, his performance suddenly comes to life; he should go psycho more often." He also took on the lead role in another action film Navy SEALs (1990), which got a mostly negative reception. Los Angeles Times review notes that Sheen's portrayal lacks psychological depth, describing his character as a "new-style psychopath" who casually terminates possibly innocent civilians without remorse. Despite this, Sheen's energetic performance adds a layer of gusto to the role. In a retrospective review in 2001, IGN wrote that the role "is one of many which would forever change his reputation from a dedicated actor (see Platoon or Wall Street) to the fun-loving hell raiser image that first springs into our minds today." Sheen starred in the parody film Hot Shots! (1991) and its sequel, Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), both huge commercial successes. Film critic Janet Maslin praised Sheen, saying "[he] brings just the right exaggerated seriousness to his ace pilot's role" and Kenneth Turan also praised his comic timing. In an interview with Bobbie Wygant, Sheen stated that for Part Deux, he underwent an intense physical regimen that included a strict diet, yoga, swimming, stationary biking, and general martial arts training. He described the program as an "insane" eight-hour-a-day, six-days-a-week routine that also involved a personal trainer for the first five weeks. Both films were among the highest-grossing films of their respective years. In 1993, he featured in the real-life inspired crime drama Beyond the Law with Linda Fiorentino and Michael Madsen, where he played a disgraced former cop who goes undercover to infiltrate a violent biker gang involved in drug trafficking.
Sheen turned down the roles in the sports comedy White Men Can't Jump (1992) and the drama Indecent Proposal (1993); both roles went to Woody Harrelson. Instead, he began taking more action-oriented roles by the mid-1990s, to mixed reception. He starred as Aramis in the new Disney version of The Three Musketeers (1993). Entertainment Weekly review described him as "reliably dry". The film was a commercial success but his follow-up action roles in The Chase (1994) and Terminal Velocity (1994) were box office flops. Regarding his performance in The Chase, Roger Ebert has praised his "ability to play an almost impossible role in a fairly straight style". Film critic James Berardinelli has also noted his "surprisingly effective chemistry" with co-star Kristy Swanson. For Terminal Velocity, Sheen received the highest salary of his movie career, earning $6 million. The film got mostly negative reviews, and Sheen's performance garnered mixed comments. Entertainment Weekly review said that despite some "fun" one-liners, Sheen gives "a boringly flat, square-jawed performance"; conversely, Variety felt that "Sheen's glib, sexy persona suits the befuddled but courageous flyboy" and Empire found him "delightful". In 1996, Sheen has returned to the science fiction genre with the film The Arrival, a box office flop that later gained cult following. The Los Angeles Times review praised Sheen's performance as the paranoid astronomer, calling it the role he was "born to" play. James Berardinelli also praised Sheen's performance and noted that he carried the film "admirably." IGN review was less impressed, finding him "over-the-top". Sheen also made his first sitcom appearance as a guest star in the second season of the popular television series Friends. Despite later becoming a well-known sitcom star, Sheen was so nervous during his first sitcom attempt in front of a live audience that filming had to pause. Nevertheless, Sheen's performance was well received, earning him spots on best guest stars of the show lists by People magazine and Looper. Sheen next starred in the political thriller Shadow Conspiracy (1997), a commercial and critical failure. Total Film review described the film as Sheen's "latest attempt to send his career to the gas chamber". His next release, the action comedy film Money Talks (1997), co-starring Chris Tucker, received mostly negative reviews but was his last box office success of the decade. Variety wrote that "Sheen, in a considerably less flashy role, gives one of his better performances. He understands he's meant to be the calming influence in this scenario and perfectly effects the slick, slightly vain, low-key demeanor of CNN's Linden Soles". He then began working primarily in the direct-to-video market, often credited as Charles Sheen. His first role under that name was as a firefighter who harasses his neighbors in the thriller Bad Day on the Block (1997), released as Under Pressure in some markets. The A.V. Club praised Sheen and co-star Mare Winningham for delivering "surprisingly textured, multidimensional performances". Sheen's subsequent Charles roles included the crime comedy Free Money (1998, opposite Marlon Brando in his final leading role), the serial killer thriller Postmortem (1998, directed by Albert Pyun), and the action film No Code of Conduct (1998), the last of which he co-wrote and produced. Sheen returned to theatrical releases by playing a fictional version of himself in the Spike Jonze film Being John Malkovich (1999) in a performance that Roger Ebert described as an "inspired cameo". PopMatters review highlighted Sheen's role as maintaining a "grim sort of reality", especially considering his real-life struggles at the time, which added depth to his performance. As a part of the ensemble cast, he was nominated for the Actor Award for the Outstanding Performance By a Cast.
