I would never say that Charlie Sheen has nothing at all to be proud of - I think he’s a perfectly acceptable sitcom actor who has a modest film career, with one or two very good movies. I don’t think his recent expressions of self satisfaction are quite in keeping with his relative successes, however, or those of anyone else who is not literally immortal and capable of withstanding 10,000 degree temperatures.
This is it exactly. Being popular does not mean you are good, much less exceptional. He was serviceable in Platoon, less so in Wall Street. He works in Two and a Half Men but so could many other actors. No way he can be considered an exceptional actor. I don’t even dislike him but, no fucking way.
If so many other actors could do it, then why was he being paid 2 million bucks an episode?
Luck, and connections. He is better than me (at acting) but no better than hundreds, maybe thousands out there who did not have luck+connections.
He is practically the definition of mediocrity.
No, if it was luck and connections, they could have replaced with someone who would have worked for a tenth of the price. It was specifically him they were paying for, not his luck and connections. His salary speaks for itself. Whatever the reason, there was something specific about Charle Sheen which drew the audience his show was getting.
There may be actors who are objectively superior from a technical acting skill standpoint. However, actors are not successful based on how well they act, but on how well they entertain the people who watch them. He is extremely successful at entertaining moviegoers and TV viewers, he brings in millions of people to spend money on tickets, and watch commercials. The vast majority of your “superior” actors can’t do that, so they’re worth bupkus to people who are putting together movies and TV shows.
shudder I hate the bolded part so much. When people say that, it drives me crazy. Just because the ‘people in this thread’ can’t play his roll on 2 and a half Men doesn’t mean they can’t have opinions about it. Why even bring up the fact that the people in this thread can’t do his job. It is irrelevent.
Sorry. One of my severe pet peeves there.
The rest of your post, I kinda agree with (except the part about the kid, who I found funny on the hand full of times that I caught the show).
I mentioned this in the ‘bad boy/pick up artist’ threads. Some people have that ‘certain something’. I know people like to pretend that it’s nothing special. They like to pretend that it is a formula that they can figure out and apply. Unfortunately, it aint that easy. Charlie Sheen seems to have something extra with him. That is why it is sad to see him fucking up so badly. Losing his kids…just messing up. He is throwing away a talent. He made it look easy. It isn’t.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Being rich and famous does not mean that you will never be broke and forgotten.
[/QUOTE]
In fact several accounts (gossip site herethat quotes Sheen himself admitting it) say that he is near broke. That’s not in the “can’t buy groceries/may be qualifying for public assistance” definition but in the "spending like no tomorrow/agents and other handlers [though his PR rep famously quit], owning more houses than other people take vacations in a year/personal assistants-domestic staff-enough on legal fees in a year to support a couple of upper middle class lawyers and their staff, child support and spousal support, mansion upkeep, etc., have left him very strapped for cash. If he doesn’t work something out with CBS he’s going to have to liquidate some assets and downgrade his lifestyle significantly if he doesn’t want to end up file for bankruptcy protection in a few months.
Celebrities and their money are always amazing to me. Somebody who was a supporting actor on a medium rated sitcom might end up a multimillionaire and one who earns hundreds of millions can end up penniless. (I expect Kelsey Grammer to end up as another Ed McMahon- his mansions in Malibu and Beverly Hills aren’t nice, they’re freaking L-A-V-I-S-H, and he’s not raking in the megabucks from acting anymore, he had no pre-nup with the one he just divorced and the young one he just married will probably join her on the dole in a few years… wouldn’t suprrise me at all if he ended up nowhere near as wealthy in terms of hands-on-cash than his co-stars John Mahoney and David Hyde Pierce.)
I have no issues with Charlie Sheen’s opinion of himself/self-esteem. I actually kinda admire him for walking around in a pair of zero-humility shoes on in public.
What I can’t get behind is him being a dick to so many people. The two attitudes clash when/if those people were jerks, too. He wants them to apologize, but he doesn’t have to because he’s always right.
Well I’m calling him a fool based on the idea that he’s not batshit crazy. He is pissing away the money he’s made, and putting a black mark next to his name (as far as producers who would hire him are concerned anyway). He could make some money still, and have something of a career still, but he could have done much better. And now people are getting tired of the act, or lunacy, I don’t know which it is. His next binge might make him unhireable. Hollywood has had plenty of bingers in the past, and generally covered for them, as long as the product gets made. Spencer Tracy was one (maybe, he might have been much worse and only a few episodes were exposed, making him look like a binger). But Charlie caused a ruckus with remarks in the middle of a season. He could have waited for summer and managed to smooth over the wrinkles by the start of a new season. But any perception of causing a show to shut down in mid-season is burning a lot of bridges. Plus, he has kids, and they are being affected by this. His most recent ex-wife might even be a worse parent than he is, but he set up a situation where she could end up with custody of his kids, and even more of his money. His next ex-wife might leave him destitute. And finally, when you have two hot chicks living with you, you shouldn’t do anything to screw up that situation.
If he is batshit crazy, well then I guess he just can’t help it.
First of all, I’d like for you to share with me the incredible blockbuster movies Charlie Sheen has propelled to fame with his star power in the last 10 years. I’ll wait.
Second of all, being paid a boatload of money for being on a very popular show is not proof you are amazingly exceptional. David Schwimmer was paid a boatload of money per episode of “Friends” and subsequent experience has shown, he isn’t shit without his ensemble. Ditto, every cast member of “ER” except George Clooney – who is in fact a person with a fucking exceptional career, whose boots, I would like to add, Charlie Sheen isn’t fit to lick. Ditto every cast member of “Seinfeld,” “Cheers” and every other blockbuster sitcom that ever was (except “Taxi.”) A 1/2-hour show can be very popular and never contain anything but average, workmanlike actors who excel in a particular schtick and have good chemistry with each other. Getting paid a lot doesn’t mean anything except that you got lucky and picked a winner.
Charlie Sheen was lucky that when a network went looking for the two cheapest washed-up losers they could find, his name came up next to Jon Cryer’s. Work wasn’t exactly knocking his door down in 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, or 1995.
Charlie Sheen is lucky that, for reasons that are lost in the mists of time, his show wasn’t cancelled after 5 episodes like hundreds of equally worthy productions.
Charlie Sheen is also lucky that he has a kick-ass publicist who has been keeping his crazy under wraps until now.
[Shrug] His ratings and salary speak for themselves. It’s not an ensemble show either. He is the draw.
I’m no expert, but many assessments of Sheen seem to conflate 'exceptional with ‘lowest common denominator’.
He wouldn’t be reaping exceptional rewards if not for the scale of the entertainment industry today. Put him in Victorian England doing Shakespeare and see how rich he gets. Even scarier, birth him into a poor, non-showbiz family - ‘exceptionally talented’ ain’t the same thing as ‘exceptionally lucky’.
Material success is not merit: Britney Spears outsells Bach.
Somehow this thread has become an argument over whether Sheen’s assessment of himself is accurate. The original question was about whether he was being honest. One can be honest and still be wrong. In Sheen’s case, I think he’s saying what he really believes, but that his beliefs are clouded by mental illness. He appears to me to be in the manic phase of bipolar disorder. Common symptoms include belief in one’s own invincibility, hypersexuality and extreme overspending.
Good point, and I agree.
Dio if you are saying that they could swap out Jon Cryer and the Fat Kid with another moderately talented 80s-era washup, say, Matt Dillon,* plus some other fat kid, and have the same show with the same popularity and the same ratings, you’re high. High like Charlie Sheen when he trashed the Eloise Suite at the Plaza.
*Actually it would be REALLY meta if he was replaced with Mary Stuart Masterson.
Has he posted any of his video babble since the earthquake/tsunami?
Or worse, Jack Nicholson - the only man to whom Richards ever said, “I really do have to go home now, Jack!” 
Apparently ol’ Jack Nicholson also smoked and snorted John Belushi under the table on more than one occasion.
As Belushi and Keith Richards were also hard running-buddies in the early 80’s Hollywood fast lane, maybe Jack schooled them both on the same evening.
Yeah, he probably did. I read an interview with him recently where he explained how he did it. He said he partied hard but always made sure to get enough sleep afterward, and that he was always conscious of the need to take care of himself. I think Belushi and Richards probably skipped those precautions. Richards really is lucky to be alive.
And that brings up something I read not too long ago about Sheen. Somebody commenting on one of the articles about him said that if he was actually was a rock star nobody would think twice about his lifestyle, and I can’t help but think this is true. There are tons of hard-core, drug-abusing rock stars around with multiple marriage and endless girlfriends and no one worries about their kids or how they’re going to turn out, so why is all this abuse aimed at Sheen when in reality he can’t hold a candle to the likes of Steven Tyler, Tommy Lee, Keith Richards and such? And I have to admit they have a point.
Despite it all there is something likable about Sheen that causes me to be more forgiving of him than people might expect. He seems to genuinely be a nice and friendly guy. I saw a film of him on a personal appearance once and he accidentally bumped into a camera someone was holding, and he instantly and genuinely apologized in a soft and conciliatory tone. In other words, he was reflexively and discreetly apologetic, rather than just acting nice because he was out in public. Even Kelly Preston, his former wife and current wife of John Travolta, recently commented about what a nice person he really is. I know there have been allegations of abuse toward women, but those allegations seem usually to come from women with behavior problems of their own, so who knows? I do think he probably has an inclination to fly off the handle in ways that can be frightening, but I don’t think he would actually hurt anyone. At least he hasn’t so far as we can know of from a reliable source.
And I think a lot of his behavior recently is sort of a combination of performance art and high farce. He gives this away sometimes when he says something really out there and then with a shy and bemused grin acknowledges that that one was probably too much. And even ABC’s Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos was smilingly admiring of what he termed “the most extraordinary bit of guerrilla P.R. I’ve ever seen.”
And I was surprised to see what good physical shape he is in when ABC’s cameras were there for his 5:30 a.m. workout with a trainer. The guy has hellacious abs for a forty-six year old drug abuser and carouser who also smokes. And it does seem that he kicked his drug habit recently by sheer dint of will and in a very short period of time.
So put this all together and you do indeed get a guy who is in some ways pretty exceptional.
Still, he’s essentially living a white-trash life in a nice Hollywood mansion and I do find myself hoping that in the end he comes out of it okay.
They’re just playing the odds. He’s making them money so they pay him to keep doing it. That doesn’t mean he’s the only one who could do that job or that he’s the best. It’s not like they ran 10 actors past the viewing audience and they voted Charlie the best. The producers of TV and movies are not producing art, they are producing a product. Charlie’s the pitchman de jour… or was.
ETA: Again, just because he’s popular doesn’t mean he’s a talented actor. Two different things.