Charlie Sheen

Carlos Irwin Estévez, known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor and leading man in film and television. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards and three Actor Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame received in 1994.

Sheen was born on September 3, 1965, in New York City, the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen (born Ramón Estévez) and artist Janet Templeton. His paternal grandparents were emigrants from Galicia, Spain, and Ireland. Growing up in a family of actors alongside his brothers Emilio and Ramon and sister Renée, Sheen moved with his family to Malibu, California. He made his first film appearance at age nine in his father's 1974 drama The Execution of Private Slovik. While attending Santa Monica High School, he played baseball and created amateur Super 8 films with his brother Emilio and friends Rob Lowe and Sean Penn. Shortly before graduation, he was expelled due to poor grades and attendance, after which he adopted his professional stage name.

Sheen began his professional acting career in the early 1980s, appearing in films such as Red Dawn (1984) and Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986). His breakthrough role arrived in the Oliver Stone-directed Vietnam War drama Platoon (1986), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He collaborated again with Stone in Wall Street (1987), playing stockbroker Bud Fox alongside his father and Michael Douglas. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, Sheen achieved further success in films including Eight Men Out (1988), Young Guns (1988), Major League (1989) as Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, Hot Shots! (1991), The Three Musketeers (1993), and The Arrival (1996).

In 2000, Sheen transitioned into prominent television roles when he replaced Michael J. Fox on the ABC sitcom Spin City, playing Charlie Crawford through 2002. He achieved major success starring as Charlie Harper on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men from 2003 to 2011. By 2010, Sheen became the highest-paid actor on television, earning US$1.8 million per episode for his work on the series.

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 public comments regarding series creator Chuck Lorre. Following his departure, he starred in the FX sitcom Anger Management from 2012 to 2014, appeared in the film Machete Kills (2013), and featured in Scary Movie 3 (2003).

In 2015, Sheen publicly revealed that he was HIV positive, leading to a notable increase in HIV prevention and testing referred to as the "Charlie Sheen effect." In 2025, he was featured as the subject of the Netflix documentary Aka Charlie Sheen and authored a New York Times best-selling memoir titled The Book of Sheen, which outlined his career and personal recovery.