Charlie Sheen returns to the spotlight with a revealing Netflix documentary that chronicles his journey through addiction and recovery, featuring candid interviews and untold stories.
Charlie Sheen’s Journey: From Addiction to Redemption
With a new two-part documentary and memoir, Charlie Sheen is back in a big way, now eight years sober and reflecting on his wild life with nothing off limits.
Behind the Scenes of aka Charlie Sheen
For the Netflix doc, titled aka Charlie Sheen, the star sat down with director Andrew Renzi to open up, after having been approached by other filmmakers and studios for years about a documentary and turning them down.
It took some convincing and eight months of the pair just getting to know each other before cameras rolled, but Sheen told The Hollywood Reporter at the L.A. premiere that Renzi “just presented it in a way that I had never really thought about before. He said, ‘Look, you’re the only guy who has done this thing, that thing’ — not the bad stuff, like the cool professional stuff. He said, ‘You’re like the only guy who has done all this stuff and those are stories worth telling. And the stuff that happened in between and after all of that cool stuff, those are stories really worth telling.’
Breaking the Mold of Celebrity Documentaries
Sheen mentioned that Renzi noted in his pitch, “This is an amazing way to put a stop to those shlock bios that are like 42 minutes and they try to cover everything and they interview people I haven’t seen in a thousand years and it’s all wrong.”
Along with Sheen’s candid commentary about his partying and career implosion, the doc also features interviews with ex-wife Denise Richards, Heidi Fleiss, Jon Cryer, Chuck Lorre, Sean Penn, brother Ramon Estevez, and his former drug dealer Marco Abeta.
Including Marco Abeta: A Unique Perspective
“I’m telling all of these crazy stories about Marco and myself, and then [Renzi and I] were both thinking what other documentary — and there’s been a lot about people that have had drug problems — when do you ever hear from the dealer? You never do,” Sheen recalled of the decision to include Abeta in the project. “And [Renzi] said ‘Will he do it?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know, he did all that other stuff, let’s just ask him.’ And [Abeta] was like ‘Yeah, man.’ There was no convincing. He did say, ‘Let me sit with Renzi for an hour; if I sit with Renzi and I feel like my story is in the same hands that yours is in, then cool.’
The Impact of Marco Abeta
Abeta had an important role in Sheen’s life, as Renzi revealed that the dealer “was actually one of the reasons [Sheen] stopped using drugs. He aligned with his dad [Martin Sheen], he aligned with his therapist, and he weaned him off of drugs by giving him bad drugs.” Sheen added, “It’s like the moon landing of sobriety, what he pulled off” and “that’s such a crazy thing that that happened but it worked, and now people will see that in this movie and be like ‘OK, that’s how we’re going to save Dave or Larry,’ right?”
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What’s Missing and Future Plans
Sheen also acknowledged that there are a couple of topics they don’t touch on in the doc “just because we couldn’t get ahold of the people who were involved and I didn’t want to do to them what had been done to me, which was telling a side of the story that they didn’t get to weigh in on. Some people may say, ‘Oh this one thing’s missing,’ that’s only because we literally — we were hiring private eyes and stuff, and couldn’t find certain people.”
As for his future plans following his doc and upcoming memoir The Book of Sheen, the star — who just turned 60 — said it “would be fun” to return to acting in a more regular way. “My dad got The West Wing at 59, so I’m just saying, the planets are aligned. The material that’s coming in now is the best I’ve read in years so I think there’s a shift happening.”
Premiere Night Reflections
Inside the premiere screening at Netflix’s Tudum Theater, Sheen took the stage to tease, “I haven’t been to a premiere in a couple of decades and a few things have changed since the last time — tonight I show up and my drug dealer Marco has taken more photos than I have. And the next minute I’m on a red carpet with my gorgeous ex-wife like we’re headed out on the town. What the hell happened?” He jokingly added, “It’s good news that we’re just watching part one tonight because if we were to watch part two, then we wouldn’t be able to maintain, at the end of it, any eye contact.”
Aka Charlie Sheen starts streaming Sept. 10 on Netflix.
